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AUSTIN    DOBSON 


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DE    LIBRIS 

PROSE   &  VERSE 


BY 

AUSTIN    DOBSON 


Vt   Mel    Os,   sic   Cor    Melos   afficit,  &   reficit. 

Deuterotnelia. 

A  mixture  of  a  Song  doth  ever  adde  Pleasure. 

Bacon   (adapted). 


ff      ^     OF  THE 

f    UNIVERSITY 

OF 


&tto  gotfc 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1908 

411  rights  reserved 


GENERAL 


Copyright,  1908 
By  THE  MACMIL.LAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  October,  1908 


THE  MASON-HENRY  PRESS 
SYRACUSE.  N.  Y. 


PROLOGUE 

LECTOR  BENEVOLE!— FOR  SO 

THEY  USED  TO  CALL  YOU,  YEARS  AGO,— 

I  CAN'T  PRETEND  TO  MAKE  YOU  READ 

THE  PAGES  THAT  TO  THIS  SUCCEED ; 

NOR  COULD  I— IF  I  WOULD^-EXCUSE 

THE  WAYWARD  PROMPTINGS  OF  THE  MUSE 

AT  WHOSE  COMMAND  I  WROTE  THEM  DOWN. 

I  HAVE  NO  HOPE  TO  "PLEASE  THE  TOWN." 
I  DID  BUT  THINK  SOME  FRIENDLY  SOUL 
(NOT  ILL-ADVISED,  UPON  THE  WHOLE!) 
MIGHT  LIKE  THEM;  AND  "TO  INTERPOSE 
A  LITTLE  EASE,"  BETWEEN  THE  PROSE, 
SLIPPED  IN  THE  SCRAPS  OF  VERSE,  THAT  THUS 
THINGS  MIGHT  BE  LESS  MONOTONOUS. 

THEN,  LECTOR,  BE  BENEVOLUS! 


175609 


[The  Author  desires  to  express  his  thanks  to  Lord  North- 
cliff e,  Messrs.  Macmillan  and  Co.,  Messrs.  Smith,  Elder  and 
Co.,  Mr.  William  Heinemann,  and  Messrs.  Virtue  and  Co., 
for  kind  permission  to  reprint  those  pieces  in  this  volume 
concerning  (which  no  specific  arrangements  <were  made  on 
their  first  appearance  in  type.] 


CONTENTS 


Prologue 

On   Some  Books  and  their  Associations 

An  Epistle  to  an  Editor 

Bramston's  "Man  of  Taste" 

The  Passionate  Printer  to  his  Love 

m.  rouquet  on  the  arts    . 

The  Friend  of  Humanity  and  the  Rhymer 

The   Parent's  Assistant 

A  Pleasant  Invective  against  Printing 

Two  Modern  Book  Illustrators — I.  Kate  Greenaway 

A  Song  of  the  Greenaway  Child   . 

Two  Modern  Book  Illustrators — II.  Mr 

Horatian  Ode  on  the  Tercentenary  of  ■ 

The  Books  of  Samuel  Rogers 

Pepys'  "Diary"        .... 

A  French  Critic  on  Bath    . 

A  Welcome  from  the  "Johnson  Club" 

Thackeray's  "Esmond"   .         . 

A  Miltonic  Exercise 

Fresh  Facts  about  Fielding   . 

The  Happy  Printer   .    . 

Cross  Readings — and  Caleb  Whitefoord 

The  Last  Proof    .... 

Index  


Hugh  Thomson 
Don  Quixote" 


PAGE 
V 

z 

17 
23 

39 

43 

6S 

69 

87 

9i 

105 

109 

125 

129 

147 

151 

163 

167 

189 

193 

205 

209 

221 

225 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


*  The   Otter   Hunt  in   the    "Compleat   Angler." 

From    an    unpublished    pen-drawing    by    Mr, 
Hugh  Thomson  .... 

*  Group    of    Children.     From    the    original    pen 

drawing  by  Kate  Greenaway  for  The  Library 
1881 

♦Pencil-Sketches,  by  the  same  (No.  x) 

♦Pencil-Sketch,  by  the  same    (No.  2) 

♦Pencil-Sketches,  by  the  same  (No.  3) 

♦Pencil-Sketch,  by   the   same    (No.  4) 

The  Brown  Book-Plate.    From  the  original  design 
by   Mr.   Hugh  Thomson   in  the   possession  o 
Mr.     Ernest    Brown    .... 

*  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  at  the  Assizes.    From  a  first 

rough  pencil-sketch,  by  the  same,  for  Days  with 
Roger  de  Coverley,  1886 

Pen-Sketches,  by  the  same,  on  the  Half-Title  of 
the  Ballad  of  Beau  Brocade,  1892.  From  the 
originals  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  A.  T.  A. 
Dobson       ....... 

♦Pen-Sketch  (Triplet),  by  the  same,  on  a  Fly-leaf 
of  Peg   Woffington,   1899 

Evelina  and  the  Branghtons,  by  the  same.  From 
the    Cranford   Evelina,    1903 


Frontispiece 

To  face  p.  93 

96 

98 

100 

102 


114 


116 


118 


xii  DE  LIBRIS 

Lady  Castlewood  and  her  Son,  by  the  same.    From 

the    Cranford    Esmond,    1905  .  .  .To  face  p.  120 

Mercery  Lane,  Canterbury,  by  the  same.  From 
the  original  pencil-drawing  for  Highways  and 
Byways   in  Kent,   1907  "        122 


*     The   originals   of   the   illustrations   preceded    by    an    asterisk 
are  in  the  possession   of  the  Author. 


ON  SOME  BOOKS  AND  THEIR 
ASSOCIATIONS 


UNIVERSn 

OF 


ON  SOME  BOOKS  AND  THEIR 
ASSOCIATIONS 

New  books  can  have  few  associations.  They  may 
reach  us  on  the  best  deckle-edged  Whatman 
paper,  in  the  newest  types  of  famous  presses,  with 
backs  of  embossed  vellum,  with  tasteful  tasselled 
strings, — and  yet  be  no  more  to  us  than  the  con- 
strained and  uneasy  acquaintances  of  yesterday. 
Friends  they  may  become  to-morrow,  the  day  after, 
— perhaps  "hunc  in  annum  et  plures."  But  for  the 
time  being  they  have  neither  part  nor  lot  in  our  past 
of  retrospect  and  suggestion.  Of  what  we  were,  of 
what  we  like  or  liked,  they  know  nothing;  and  we — if 
that  be  possible — know  even  less  of  them.  Whether 
familiarity  will  breed  contempt,  or  whether  they 
will  come  home  to  our  business  and  bosom, — these 
are  things  that  lie  on  the  lap  of  the  Fates. 

But   it  is  to   be   observed  that  the   associations 
of  old  books,   as  of  new  books,   are   not   always 

3 


4  DE  LIBRIS 

exclusively  connected  with  their  text  or  format, — are 
sometimes,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  independent  of  both. 
Often  they  are  memorable  to  us  by  length  of  tenure, 
by  propinquity,  —  even  by  their  patience  under 
neglect.  We  may  never  read  them;  and  yet  by 
reason  of  some  wholly  external  and  accidental 
characteristic,  it  would  be  a  wrench  to  part  with 
them  if  the  moment  of  separation — the  inevitable 
hour — should  arrive  at  last.  Here,  to  give  an 
instance  in  point,  is  a  stained  and  battered  French 
folio,  with  patched  corners, — Mons.  N.  Renouard's 
translation  of  the  Metamorphoses  d'Ovide,  1637, 
"enrichies  de  figures  a  chacune  Fable"  (very  odd  figures 
some  of  them  are!)  and  to  be  bought  "chez  Pierre 
Billaine,  rue  Sainct  Iacques,  a  la  Bonne-Foy,  deuant 
S.  Yues."  It  has  held  no  honoured  place  upon  the 
shelves ;  it  has  even  resided  au  rez-de-ehaussee, — that 
is  to  say,  upon  the  floor;  but  it  is  not  less  dear, — 
not  less  desirable.  For  at  the  back  of  the  "Dedica- 
tion to  the  King"  (Lewis  XIII.  to  wit),  is  scrawled 
in  a  slanting,  irregular  hand:  "Pour  mademoiselle 
de  mons  Son  tres  humble  et  tres  obeissant  Serviteur  St. 
Andre.11  Between  the  fourth  and  fifth  word,  some 
one,  in  a  smaller  writing  of  later  date,  has  added 
"par"  and  after  "St.  Andre,"  the  signature 
"V andeuvre."  In  these  irrelevant  (and  unsolicited) 
interpolations,  I  take  no  interest.  But  who  was 
Mile,  de  Mons?     As  Frederick  Locker  sings: 


BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ASSOCIATIONS     5 

Did  She  live  yesterday  or  ages  back? 

What  colour  were  the  eyes  when  bright  and  waking? 
And  were  your  ringlets  fair,  or  brown,  or  black, 

Poor  little  Head !    that  long  has  done  with  aching ! ' 

"Ages  back"  she  certainly  did  not  live,  for  the  book 
is  dated  "1637,"  and  "yesterday"  is  absurd.  But 
that  her  eyes  were  bright, — nay,  that  they  were 
particularly  lively  and  vivacious,  even  as  they  are  in 
the  sanguine  sketches  of  Antoine  Watteau  a  hundred 
years  afterwards,  I  am  "confidous" — as  Mrs. 
Slipslop  would  say.  For  my  theory  (in  reality  a 
foregone  conclusion  which  I  shrink  from  dis- 
persing by  any  practical  resolvent)  is,  that  Mile,  de 
Mons  was  some  delightful  seventeenth-century 
French  child,  to  whom  the  big  volume  had  been 
presented  as  a  picture-book.  I  can  imagine  the  alert, 
straight-corsetted  little  figure,  with  ribboned  hair, 
eagerly  craning  across  the  tall  folio;  and  follow- 
ing curiously  with  her  finger  the  legends  under  the 
copper  "figures," — "Narcisse  en  fleur,"  "Ascalaphe 
en  hibou,"  "Jason  endormant  le  dragon," — and 
so  forth,  with  much  the  same  wonder  that  the 
Sinne-Beelden    of    Jacob    Cats    must    have    stirred 


1  This  quatrain  has  the  distinction  of  having  been  touched  upon  by 
Thackeray.  When  Mr.  Locker's  manuscript  went  to  the  Cornhill  Magazine 
in   i860,  it  ran  thus: 

Did  she  live  yesterday,  or  ages  sped? 

What  colour  were  the  eyes  when  bright  and  waking? 
And   were   your   ringlets    fair?     Poor  little  head! 

— Poor    little   heart!    that   long   has    done   with    aching. 


6  DE  LIBRIS 

in  the  little  Dutchwomen  of  Middleburgh.  There 
can  be  no  Mile,  de  Mons  but  this, — and  for  me  she 
can  never  grow  old! 

Sometimes  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  association  is 
of  a  more  far-fetched  and  fanciful  kind.  In  the 
great  Ovid  it  lies  in  an  inscription :  in  my  next  case 
it  is  "another-guess"  matter.  The  folio  this  time  is 
the  Sylva  Sylvarum  of  the  "Right  Hon.  Francis  Lo. 
Verulam,  Viscount  St.  Alban,"  of  whom  some  people 
still" prefer  to  speak  as  Lord  Bacon.  'Tis  only  the 
"sixt  Edition";  but  it  was  to  be  bought  at  the  Great 
Turk's  Head,  "next  to  the  Mytre  Tauerne"  (not 
the  modern  pretender,  be  it  observed!),  which  is  in 
itself  a  feature  of  interest.  A  former  possessor,  from 
his  notes,  appears  to  have  been  largely  preoccupied 
with  that  ignoble  clinging  to  life  which  so  exercised 
Matthew  Arnold,  for  they  relate  chiefly  to  laxative 
simples  for  medicine;  and  he  comforts  himself,  in 
April,  1695,  DY  transcribing  Bacon's  reflection  that 
"a  Life  led  in  Religion  and  in  Holy  Exercises"  con- 
duces to  longevity, — an  aphorism  which,  however 
useful  as  an  argument  for  length  of  days,  is  a  rather 
remote  reason  for  religion.  But  what  to  me  is 
always  most  seductive  in  the  book  is,  that  to  this 
edition  (not  copy,  of  course)  of  1651  Master  Izaak 
Walton,  when  he  came,  in  his  Compleat  Angler 
of  1653,  to  discuss  such  abstract  questions  as  the 
transmission  of  sound  under  water,  and  the  ages  of 


BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ASSOCIATIONS     7 

carp  and  pike,  must  probably  have  referred.  He 
often  mentions  "Sir  Francis  Bacon's"  History  of  Life 
and  Death,  which  is  included  in  the  volume.  No 
doubt  it  would  be  more  reasonable  and  more  "con- 
gruous" that  Bacon's  book  should  suggest  Bacon. 
But  there  it  is.  That  illogical  "succession  of  ideas" 
which  puzzled  my  Uncle  Toby,  invariably  recalls  to 
me,  not  the  imposing  folio  to  be  purchased  "next  to 
the  Mytre  Tauerne"  in  Fleet  Street,  but  the  un- 
pretentious eighteenpenny  octavo  which,  two  years 
later,  was  on  sale  at  Richard  Marriot's  in  St. 
Dunstan's  churchyard  hard  by,  and  did  no  more  than 
borrow  its  erudition  from  the  riches  of  the  Baconian 
storehouse. 

Life,  and  its  prolongation,  is  again  the  theme 
of  the  next  book  (also  mentioned,  by  the  way,  in 
Walton)  which  I  take  up,  though  unhappily  it  has  no 
inscription.  It  is  a  little  old  calf-clad  copy  of  Lewis 
Cornaro's  Sure  and  Certain  Methods  of  attaining  a 
Long  and  Healthful  Life,  4th  ed.,  241110,  1727;  and 
was  bought  at  the  Bewick  sale  of  February,  1884,  as 
having  once  belonged  to  Robert  Elliot  Bewick,  only 
son  of  the  famous  old  Newcastle  wood-engraver. 
As  will  be  shown  later,  it  is  easy  to  be  misled  in  these 
matters,  but  I  cannot  help  believing  that  this  volume, 
which  looks  as  if  it  had  been  re-bound,  is  the  one 
Thomas  Bewick  mentions  in  his  Memoir  as  having 
been  his  companion  in  those  speculative  wanderings 


8  DE  LIBRIS 

over  the  Town  Moor  or  the  Elswick  Fields,  when, 
as  an  apprentice,  he  planned  his  future  a  la  Franklin 
and  devised  schemes  for  his  conduct  in  life.  In 
attaining  Cornaro's  tale  of  years  he  did  not  succeed; 
though  he  seems  to  have  faithfully  practised  the 
periods  of  abstinence  enjoined  (but  probably  not 
observed)  by  another  of  the  "noble  Venetian's" 
professed  admirers,  Mr.  Addison  of  the  Spectator. 

If  I  have  admitted  a  momentary  misgiving  as  to 
the  authenticity  of  the  foregoing  relic  of  the  "father 
of  white  line,"  there  can  be  none  about  the  next 
item  to  which  I  now  come.  Once,  on  a  Westminster 
bookstall,  long  since  disappeared,  I  found  a  copy  of 
a  seventh  edition  of  the  Pursuits  of  Literature  of 
T.  J.  Mathias,  Queen  Charlotte's  Treasurer's  Clerk. 
Brutally  cut  down  by  the  binder,  that  durus 
arator  had  unexpectedly  spared  a  solitary  page  for 
its  manuscript  comment,  which  was  thoughtfully 
turned  up  and  folded  in.  It  was  a  note  to  this 
couplet  in  Mathias,  his  Dialogue  II. : — 

From  Bewick's  magick  wood  throw  borrow'd  rays 
O'er  many  a  page  in  gorgeous  Bulmer's  blaze, — 

"gorgeous  Bulmer"  (the  epithet  is  over-colored!) 
being  the  William  Bulmer  who,  in  1795,  issued  the 
Poems  of  Goldsmith  and  Parnell.  "I"  (says  the  writer 
of  the  note)  "was  chiefly  instrumental  to  this  ingeni- 
ous artist's  [Bewick's]  excellence  in  this  art.     I  first 


BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ASSOCIATIONS     9 

initiated  his  master,  Mr.  Ra.  Beilby  (of  Newcastle) 
into  the  art,  and  his  first  essay  was  the  execution  of 
the  cuts  in  my  Treatise  on  Mensuration,  printed  in 
4to,  1770.  Soon  after  I  recommended  the  same 
artist  to  execute  the  cuts  to  Dr.  Horsley's  edition 
of  the  works  of  Newton.  Accordingly  Mr.  B. 
had  the  job,  who  put  them  into  the  hands  of  his 
assistant,  Mr.  Bewick,  who  executed  them  as  his  first 
work  in  wood,  and  that  in  a  most  elegant  manner, 
tho'  spoiled  in  the  printing  by  John  Nichols,  the 
Black-letter  printer.    C.  H.  1798." 

"C.  H."  is  Dr.  Charles  Hutton,  the  Woolwich 
mathematician.  His  note  is  a  little  in  the  vaunting 
vein  of  that  "founder  of  fortunes,"  the  excellent 
Uncle  Pumblechook  of  Great  Expectations,  for  his 
services  scarcely  amounted  to  "initiating"  Bewick 
or  his  master  into  the  art  of  engraving  on  wood. 
Moreover,  his  memory  must  have  failed  him,  for 
Bewick,  and  not  Beilby,  did  the  majority  of  the 
cuts  to  the  Mensuration,  including  a  much-praised 
diagram  of  the  tower  of  St.  Nicholas  Church  at 
Newcastle,  afterwards  a  familiar  object  in  the  younger 
man's  designs  and  tail-pieces.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
Dr.  Hutton's  note  was  surely  worth  rescuing  from 
the  ruthless  binder's  plough. 

Between  the  work  of  Thomas  Bewick  and  the 
work  of  Samuel  Pepys,  it  is  idle  to  attempt  any 
ingenious  connecting  link,  save  the  fact  that  they 


io  DE  LIBRIS 

both  wrote  autobiographically.  The  "Pepys"  in 
question  here,  however,  is  not  the  famous  Diary, 
but  the  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty's  "only  other 
acknowledged  work,"  namely,  the  privately  printed 
Mcmo'ires  Relating  to  the  State  of  the  Royal  Navy  of 
England,  for  Ten  Years,  1690;  and  this  copy  may 
undoubtedly  lay  claim  to  exceptional  interest. 
For  not  only  does  it  comprise  those  manuscript 
corrections  in  the  author's  handwriting,  which 
Dr.  Tanner  reproduced  in  his  excellent  Clarendon 
Press  reprint  of  last  year,  but  it  includes  the  two 
portrait  plates  by  Robert  White  after  Kneller.  The 
larger  is  bound  in  as  a  frontispiece;  the  smaller  (the 
ex-libris)  is  inserted  at  the  beginning.  The  main 
attraction  of  the  book  to  me,  however,  is  its  previous 
owners — one  especially.  My  immediate  predecessor 
was  a  well-known  collector,  Professor  Edward  Solly, 
at  whose  sale  in  1886  I  bought  it;  and  he  in  his 
turn  had  acquired  it  in  1877,  at  Dr.  Rimbault's  sale. 
Probably  what  drew  us  all  to  the  little  volume  was 
not  so  much  its  disclosure  of  the  lamentable  state  of 
the  Caroline  navy,  and  of  the  monstrous  toadstools 
that  flourished  so  freely  in  the  ill-ventilated  holds  of 
His  Majesty's  ships-of-war,  as  the  fact  that  it  had 
once  belonged  to  that  brave  old  philanthropist, 
Captain  Thomas  Coram  of  the  Foundling  Hospital. 
To  him  it  was  presented  in  March,  1724,  by  one 
C.  Jackson;  and  he  afterwards  handed  it  on  to  a 


BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ASSOCIATIONS  n 

Mr.  Mills.  Pasted  at  the  end  is  Coram's  autograph 
letter,  dated  "June  ioth,  1746."  "To  Mr.  Mills 
These.  Worthy  Sir  I  happend  to  find  among  my 
few  Books,  Mr.  Pepys  his  memoires,  wch  I  thought 
might  be  acceptable  to  you  &  therefore  pray  you 
to  accept  of  it.  I  am  wth  much  Respect  Sir  your 
most  humble  Ser**    Thomas  Coram." 

At  the  Foundling  Hospital  is  a  magnificent  full- 
length  of  Coram,  with  curling  white  locks  and  kindly, 
weather-beaten  face,  from  the  brush  of  his  friend 
and  admirer,  William  Hogarth.  .  It  is  to  Hogarth 
and  his  fellow-Governor  at  the  Foundling,  John 
Wilkes,  that  my  next  jotting  relates.  These  strange 
colleagues  in  charity  afterwards — as  is  well  known — 
quarrelled  bitterly  over  politics.  Hogarth  caricatured 
Wilkes  in  the  Times:  Wilkes  replied  by  a  North 
Briton  article  (No.  17)  so  scurrilous  and  malignant 
that  Hogarth  was  stung  into  rejoining  with  that 
famous  squint-eyed  semblance  of  his  former  crony, 
which  has  handed  him  down  to  posterity  more 
securely  than  the  portraits  of  Zoffany  and  Earlom. 
Wilkes's  action  upon  this  was  to  reprint  his  article 
with  the  addition  of  a  bulbous-nosed  woodcut  of 
Hogarth  "from  the  Life."  These  facts  lent  interest 
to  an  entry  which  for  years  had  been  familiar  to  me 
in  the  Sale  Catalogue  of  Mr.  H.  P.  Standly,  and 
which  ran  thus:  "The  North  Briton,  No.  17,  with 
a  Portrait  of  Hogarth  in  wood;  and  a  severe 


12  DE  LIBRIS 

critique  on  some  of  his  works :  in  Ireland! 's  handwriting 
is  the  following — 'This  paper  was  given  to  me  by  Mrs. 
Hogarth,  Aug.  1782,  and  is  the  identical  North  Briton 
purchased  by  Hogarth,  and  carried  in  his  pocket  many 
days  to  show  his  friends.''  "  The  Ireland  referred  to 
(as  will  presently  appear)  was  Samuel  Ireland  of 
the  Graphic  Illustrations.  When,  in  1892,  dispersed 
items  of  the  famous  Joly  collection  began  to 
appear  sporadically  in  the  second-hand  catalogues, 
I  found  in  that  of  a  well-known  London  bookseller 
an  entry  plainly  describing  this  one,  and  proclaiming 
that  it  came  "from  the  celebrated  collection  of  Mr. 
Standly,  of  St.  Neots."  Unfortunately,  the  scrap 
of  paper  connecting  it  with  Mrs.  Hogarth's  present 
to  Ireland  had  been  destroyed.  Nevertheless,  I 
secured  my  prize,  had  it  fittingly  bound  up  with 
the  original  number  which  accompanied  it;  and 
here  and  there,  in  writing  about  Hogarth,  bragged 
consequentially  about  my  fortunate  acquisition. 
Then  came  a  day — a  day  to  be  marked  with  a  black 
stone! — when  in  the  British  Museum  Print  Room, 

and  looking  through  the  " Collection,"  for  the 

moment  deposited  there,  I  came  upon  another  copy 
of  the  North  Briton,  bearing  in  Samuel  Ireland's 
writing  a  notification  to  the  effect  that  it  was  the 
identical  No.  17,  etc.,  etc.  Now  which  is  the  right 
one?  Is  either  the  right  one?  I  inspect  mine 
distrustfully.     It  is  soiled,  and  has  evidently  been 


BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ASSOCIATIONS  13 

folded;  it  is  scribbled  with  calculations;  it  has  all 
the  aspect  of  a  venerable  vetuste.  That  it  came  from 
the  Standly  collection,  I  am  convinced.  But  that 
other  pretender  in  the  (now  dispersed)  " Collec- 
tion"? And  was  not  Samuel  Ireland  (nomen  invisum!) 
the,  if  not  fraudulent,  at  least  too-credulous  father 
of  one  William  Henry  Ireland,  who,  at  eighteen, 
wrote  V  or  tiger  n  and  Rowena,  and  palmed  it  off  as 
genuine  Shakespeare  ?  I  fear  me — I  much  fear  me — 
that,  in  the  words  of  the  American  showman,  I  have 
been  "weeping  over  the  wrong  grave." 

To  prolong  these  vagrant  adversaria  would  not 
be  difficult.  Here,  for  example,  dated  1779,  are 
the  Coplas  of  the  poet  Don  Jorge  Manrique,  which, 
having  no  Spanish,  I  am  constrained  to  study  in 
the  renderings  of  Longfellow.  Don  Jorge  was 
a  Spaniard  of  the  Spaniards,  Commendador  of 
Montizon,  Knight  of  the  Order  of  Santiago,  Captain 
of  a  company  in  the  Guards  of  Castile,  and  withal 
a  valiant  soldado,  who  died  of  a  wound  received  in 
battle.  But  the  attraction  of  my  volume  is,  that, 
at  the  foot  of  the  title-page,  in  beautiful  neat  script, 
appear  the  words,  "Robert  Southey.  Paris.  17  May 
18 17," — being  the  year  in  which  Southey  stayed 
at  Como  with  Walter  Savage  Landor.  Here  are 
the  Works  of  mock-heroic  John  Philips,  1720, 
whose  Blenheim  the  Tories  pitted  against  Addison's 
Campaign,  and  whose  Splendid  Shilling  still  shines 


i4  DE  LIBRIS 

lucidly  among  eighteenth-century  parodies.  This 
copy  bears — also  on  the  title-page — the  autograph  of 
James  Thomson,  not  yet  the  author  of  The  Seasons ; 
and  includes  the  book-plate  of  Lord  Prestongrange, 
— that  "Lord  Advocate  Grant"  of  whom  you  may 
read  in  the  Kidnapped  of  "R.  L.  S."  Here  again  is 
an  edition  (the  first)  of  Hazlitt's  Lectures  on  the 
English  Comic  Writers,  annotated  copiously  in  MS. 
by  a  contemporary  reader  who  was  certainly  not  an 
admirer;  and  upon  whom  W.  H.'s  cockneyisms, 
Gallicisms,  egotisms,  and  "f/fe-isms"  generally,  seem 
to  have  had  the  effect  of  a  red  rag  upon  an  inveterately 
insular  bull.  "A  very  ingenious  but  pert,  dogmatical, 
and  Prejudiced  Writer"  is  his  uncomplimentary 
addition  to  the  author's  name.  Then  here  is 
Cunningham's  Goldsmith  of  1854,  vol.  i.,  castigated 
with  equal  energy  by  that  Alaric  Alexander  Watts,1 
of  whose  egregious  strictures  upon  Wordsworth  we 
read  not  long  since  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  and 
who  will  not  allow  Goldsmith  to  say,  in  the  Haunch 
of  Venison,  "the  porter  and  eatables  followed  behind." 
"They  could  scarcely  have  followed  before,"- — he 
objects,  in  the  very  accents  of  Boeotia.  Nor  will 
he  pass  "the  hollow-sounding  bittern"  of  the 
Deserted  Village.     A  barrel  may  sound  hollow,  but 


1  So  he  was  christened.  But  Lockhart  chose  to  insist  that  his  second 
prename  should  properly  be  "Attila,"  and  thenceforth  he  was  spoken  of  in 
this    way. 


BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ASSOCIATIONS  15 

not  a  bird — this  wiseacre  acquaints  us.  Had  the 
gifted  author  of  Lyrics  of  the  Heart  never  heard  of 
rhetorical  figures?  But  he  is  not  Goldsmith's  only 
hyper-critic.  Charles  Fox,  who  admired  The  Traveller, 
thought  Olivia's  famous  song  in  the  Vicar  "foolish," 
and  added  that  "folly"  was  a  bad  rhyme  to  "melan- 
choly."1   He  must  have  forgotten  Milton's : — 

Bird  that  shunn'st  the  noise  of  folly, 
Most  rausicall,  most  melancholy! 

Or  he  might  have  gone  to  the  other  camp,  and 
remembered  Pope  on  Mrs.  Howard: — 

Not  warp'd  by  Passion,   aw'd  by  Rumour, 
Not  grave  thro'  Pride,  or  gay  thro'  Folly, 

An  equal  Mixture  of  good  Humour, 
And  sensible  soft  Melancholy. 

1  Recollections,   by   Samuel  Rogers,   and  ed.   1859,  43. 


AN  EPISTLE  TO  AN  EDITOR 


»7 


AN  EPISTLE  TO  AN  EDITOR 


'Jamais  les  arbres  verts  n'ont  essaye  d'etre  bleus." — 

Theophile  Gautier 


"A  new  Review  I"    You  make  me  tremble 
(Though  as  to  that,  I  can  dissemble 
Till  I  hear  more) .    But  is  it  "new"  ? 
And  will  it  be  a  real  Review? — 
I  mean,  a  Court  wherein  the  scales 
Weigh  equally  both  him  that  fails, 
And  him  that  hits  the  mark  ? — a  place 
Where  the  accus'd  can  plead  his  case, 
If  wrong' d?    All  this  I  need  to  know 
Before  I  (arrogant!)  say  "Go." 

"We,  that  are  very  old"  (the  phrase 
Is  Steele's,  not  mine!),  in  former  days, 
Have  seen  so  many  "new  Reviews" 
Arise,  arraign,  absolve,  abuse; — 
Proclaim  their  mission  to  the  top 

(Where  there's  still  room!),  then  slowly  drop, 
19 


20  DE  LIBRIS 

Shrink  down,  fade  out,  and  sans  preferment, 
Depart  to  their  obscure  interment; — 
We  should  be  pardon'd  if  we  doubt 
That  a  new  venture  can  hold  out. 

It  will,  you  say.    Then  don't  be  "new" ; 
Be  "old."    The  Old  is  still  the  True. 
Nature  (said  Gautier)  never  tries 
To  alter  her  accustom'd  dyes; 
And  all  your  novelties  at  best 
Are  ancient  puppets,  newly  drest. 
What  you  must  do,  is  not  to  shrink 
From  speaking  out  the  thing  you  think ; 
And  blaming  where  'tis  right  to  blame, 
Despite  tradition  and  a  Name. 
Yet  don't  expand  a  trifling  blot, 
Or  ban  the  book  for  what  it's  not 
(That  is  the  poor  device  of  those 
Who  cavil  where  they  can't  oppose!)  ; 
Moreover  (this  is  very  old!), 
Be  courteous — even  when  you  scold ! 

Blame  I  put  first,  but  not  at  heart. 
You  must  give  Praise  the  foremost  part; — 
Praise  that  to  those  who  write  is  breath 
Of  Life,  if  just;  if  unjust,  Death. 
Praise  then  the  things  that  men  revere; 
Praise  what  they  love,  not  what  they  fear ; 


AN  EPISTLE  TO  AN  EDITOR         21 

Praise  too  the  young ;  praise  those  who  try ; 

Praise  those  who  fail,  but  by  and  by 

May  do  good  work.    Those  who  succeed, 

You'll  praise  perforce, — so  there's  no  need 

To  speak  of  that.    And  as  to  each, 

See  you  keep  measure  in  your  speech ; — 

See  that  your  praise  be  so  exprest 

That  the  best  man  shall  get  the  best ; 

Nor  fail  of  the  fit  word  you  meant 

Because  your  epithets  are  spent. 

Remember  that  our  language  gives 

No  limitless  superlatives ; 

And  Shakespeare,  Homer,  should  have  more 

Than  the  last  knocker  at  the  door ! 

"We,  that  are  very  old  I" — May  this 

Excuse  the  hint  you  find  amiss. 

My  thoughts,  I  feel,  are  what  to-day 

Men  call  vieux  jeu.    Well! — "let  them  say." 

The  Old,  at  least,  we  know :  the  New 

(A  changing  Shape  that  all  pursue!) 

Has  been, — may  be,  a  fraud. 

— But  there ! 
Wind  to  your  sail !    Vogue  la  galere! 


BRAMSTON'S  "MAN  OF  TASTE" 


23 


BRAMSTON'S  "MAN  OF  TASTE" 

Were  you  to  inquire  respectfully  of  the  infallible 
critic  (if  such  indeed  there  be!)  for  the  source  of 
the  aphorism,  "Music  has  charms  to  soothe  a  savage 
beast,"  he  would  probably  "down"  you  contempt- 
uously in  the  Johnsonian  fashion  by  replying  that 
you  had  "just  enough  of  learning  to  misquote"; — 
that  the  last  word  was  notoriously  "breast"  and  not 
"beast"; — and  that  the  line,  as  Macaulay's,  and 
every  Board  School-boy  besides  must  be  abundantly 
aware,  is  to  be  found  in  Congreve's  tragedy  of  The 
Mourning  Bride.  But  he  would  be  wrong;  and,  in 
fact,  would  only  be  confirming  the  real  author's 
contention  that  "Sure,  of  all  blockheads,  Scholars 
are  the  worst."  For,  whether  connected  with 
Congreve  or  not,  the  words  are  correctly  given; 
and  they  occur  in  the  Rev.  James  Bramston's  satire, 
The  Man  of  Taste,  1733,  running  in  a  couplet  as 
follows : — 

Musick  has  charms  to  sooth  a  savage  beast, 
And  therefore  proper  at  a  Sheriff's  feast. 
25 


26  DE  LIBRIS 

Moreover,  according  to  the  handbooks,  this  is  not 
the  only  passage  from  a  rather  obscure  original 
which  has  held  its  own.  "Without  black-velvet- 
britches,  what  is  man?" — is  another  (a  speculation 
which  might  have  commended  itself  to  Don 
Quixote)  j1  while  The  Art  of  Politicks,  also  by 
Bramston,  contains  a  third: — 

What's  not  destroyed  by  Time's  devouring  Hand? 
Where's  Troy,  and  where's  the  May-Pole  in  the  Strand? 

Polonius  would  perhaps  object  against  a  "devouring 
hand."  But  the  survival  of — at  least — three  fairly 
current  citations  from  a  practically  forgotten  minor 
Georgian  satirist  would  certainly  seem  to  warrant  a 
few  words  upon  the  writer  himself,  and  his  chief 
performance  in  verse. 

The  Rev.  James  Bramston  was  born  in  1694 
or  1695  at  Skreens,  near  Chelmsford,  in  Essex,  his 
father,  Francis  Bramston,  being  the  fourth  son  of  Sir 
Moundeford  Bramston,  Master  in  Chancery,  whose 
father  again  was  Sir  John  Bramston,  Lord  Chief 
Justice  of  the  King's  Bench,  generally  known  as 
"the  elder."2  James  Bramston  was  admitted  to 
Westminster  School  in  1708.    In  17 13  he  became  a 


1  Whose  grande  tenue  or  holiday  wear — Cervantes  tells  us — was  "a  doublet 
of  fine  cloth  and  velvet  breeches  and  shoes  to  match"    (ch.   i). 

2  Sir  John  Bramston,  the  younger,  was  the  author  of  the  "watery 
incoherent  Autobiography" — as  Carlyle  calls  it — published  by  the  Camden 
Society  in   1845. 


BRAMSTON'S  "MAN  OF  TASTE"      27 

scholar  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  proceeding  B.A. 
in  1717,  and  M.A.  in  1720.  In  1723  he  was 
made  Vicar  of  Lurgashall,  and  in  1725  of  Harting, 
both  of  which  Sussex  livings  he  held  until  his  death 
in  March  1744,  ten  weeks  before  the  death  of  Pope. 
His  first  published  verses  ( 1715)  were  on  Dr. 
Radcliffe.  In  1729  he  printed  the  Art  of  Politicks, 
one  of  the  many  contemporary  imitations  of  the  Ars 
Poetica;  and  in  1733  The  Man  of  Taste.  He  also 
wrote  a  mediocre  variation  on  the  Splendid  Shilling  of 
John  Philips,  entitled  the  Crooked  Sixpence,  1743. 
Beyond  a  statement  in  Dallaway's  Sussex  that  uhe 
[Bramston]  was  a  man  of  original  humour,  the  fame 
and  proofs  of  whose  colloquial  wit  are  still  remem- 
bered"; and  the  supplementary  information  that,  as 
incumbent  of  Lurgashall,  he  received  an  annual  modus 
of  a  fat  buck  and  doe  from  the  neighbouring 
Park  of  Petworth,  nothing  more  seems  to  have  been 
recorded  of  him. 

The  Crooked  Sixpence  is,  at  best,  an  imitation  of  an 
imitation;  and  as  a  Miltonic  pastiche  does  not  excel 
that  of  Philips,  or  rival  the  more  serious  Lewesdon 
Hill  di  Crowe.  The  Art  of  Politicks,  in  its  turn, 
would  need  a  fairly  long  commentary  to  make 
what  is  only  moderately  interesting  moderately 
intelligible,  while  eighteenth-century  copies  of 
Horace's  letter  to  the  Pisos  are  "plentiful  as 
blackberries."     But  The  Man  of  Taste,  based,  as 


28  DE  LIBRIS 

it  is,  on  the  presentment  of  a  never  extinct  type, 
the  connoisseur  against  Nature  invitissima  Minerva, 
is  still  worthy  of  passing  notice. 

In  the  sub-title  of  the  poem,  it  is  declared  to  be 
"Occasioned  by  an  Epistle  of  Mr.  Pope's  on  that 
Subject  [i.e.  "Taste"].  This  was  what  is  now 
known  as  No.  4  of  the  Moral  Essays,  "On  the 
Use  of  Riches."  But  its  first  title  in  1731  was 
"Of  Taste";  and  this  was  subsequently  altered  to 
"Of  False  Taste."  It  was  addressed  to  Pope's 
friend,  Richard  Boyle,  Earl  of  Burlington;  and,  under 
the  style  of  "Timon's  Villa,"  employed,  for  its  chief 
illustration  of  wasteful  and  vacuous  magnificence,  the 
ostentatious  seat  which  James  Brydges,  first  Duke  of 
Chandos,  had  erected  at  Canons,  near  Edgware.  The 
story  of  Pope's  epistle  does  not  belong  to  this  place. 
But  in  the  print  of  The  Man  of  Taste,  William 
Hogarth,  gratifying  concurrently  a  personal  anti- 
pathy, promptly  attacked  Pope,  Burlington,  and 
his  own  bete  noire,  Burlington's  architect,  William 
Kent.  Pope,  to  whom  Burlington  acts  as  hodman, 
is  depicted  whitewashing  Burlington  Gate,  Piccadilly, 
which  is  labelled  "Taste,"  and  over  which  rises 
Kent's  statue,  subserviently  supported  at  the  angles 
of  the  pediment  by  Raphael  and  Michelangelo.  In 
his  task,  the  poet,  a  deformed  figure  in  a  tye-wig, 
bountifully  bespatters  the  passers-by,  particularly  the 
chariot  of  the  Duke  of  Chandos.     The  satire  was 


BRAMSTON'S  "MAN  OF  TASTE"      29 

not  very  brilliant  or  ingenious;  but  its  meaning  was 
clear.  Pope  was  prudent  enough  to  make  no  reply; 
though,  as  Mr.  G.  S.  Layard  shows  in  his  Suppressed 
Plates,  it  seems  that  the  print  was,  or  was  sought  to 
be,  called  in  by  those  concerned.  Bramston's  poem, 
which  succeeded  in  1733,  does  not  enter  into  the 
quarrel,  it  may  be  because  of  the  anger  aroused  by  the 
pictorial  reply.  But  if — as  announced  on  its  title- 
page, — it  was  suggested  by  Pope's  epistle,  it  would 
also  seem  to  have  borrowed  its  name  from  Hogarth's 
caricature. 

It  was  first  issued  in  folio  by  Pope's  publisher, 
Lawton  Gilliver  of  Fleet  Street,  and  has  a  frontispiece 
engraved  by  Gerard  Vandergucht.  This  depicts  a 
wide-skirted,  effeminate-looking  personage,  carrying 
a  long  cane  with  a  head  fantastically  carved,  and 
surrounded  by  various  objects  of  art.  In  the  back- 
ground rises  what  is  apparently  intended  for  the 
temple  of  a  formal  garden;  and  behind  this  again,  a 
winged  ass  capers  skittishly  upon  the  summit  of 
Mount  Helicon.  As  might  be  anticipated,  the  poem 
is  in  the  heroic  measure  of  Pope.  But  though  many 
of  its  couplets  are  compact  and  pointed,  Bramston  has 
not  yet  learned  from  his  model  the  art  of  varying  his 
pausation,  and  the  period  closes  his  second  line  with 
the  monotony  of  a  minute  gun.  Another  defect, 
noticed  by  Warton,  is  that  the  speaker  throughout  is 
made  to  profess  the  errors  satirised,  and  to  be  the 


3o  DE  LIBRIS 

unabashed  mouth-piece  of  his  own  fatuity.  "Mine," 
say  the  concluding  lines, — 

Mine  are  the  gallant  Schemes  of  Politesse, 
For  books,  and  buildings,  politicks,  and  dress. 
This  is  True  Taste,  and  whoso  likes  it  not, 
Is  blockhead,  coxcomb,  puppy,  fool,  and  sot. 

One  is  insensibly  reminded  of  a  quotation  from  P.  L. 
Courier,  made  in  the  Cornhill  many  years  since  by 
the  once  famous  "Jacob  Omnium"  when  replying 
controversially  to  the  author  of  Ionica.  "Je  vois" — 
says  Courier,  after  recapitulating  a  string  of  abusive 
epithets  hurled  at  him  by  his  opponent — "je  vois  ce 
qu'il  veut  dire:  il  entend  que  lui  et  mol  sont  d! avis 
different;  et  cfest  la  sa  maniere  de  sy exprimer."  It  was 
also  the  manner  of  our  Man  of  Taste. 

The  second  line  of  the  above  quotation  from 
Bramston  gives  us  four  of  the  things  upon  which  his 
hero  lays  down  the  law.  Let  us  see  what  he  says 
about  literature.  As  a  professing  critic  he  prefers 
books  with  notes : — 

Tho'  Blackmore's  works  my  soul  with  raptures  fill, 
With  notes  by  Bently  they'd  be  better  still. 

Swift  he  detests — not  of  course  for  detestable  qualities, 
but  because  he  is  so  universally  admired.  In  poetry 
he  holds  by  rhyme  as  opposed  to  blank  verse : — 

Verse  without  rhyme  I  never  could  endure, 
Uncouth  in  numbers,  and  in  sense  obscure. 


BRAMSTON'S  "MAN  OF  TASTE"      31 

To  him  as  Nature,  when  he  ceas'd  to  see, 

Milton's  an  universal  Blank  to  me.  .  . 

Thompson  [jzV]  write  blank,  but  know  that  for  that  reason 

These  lines  shall  live,  when  thine  are  out  of  season. 

Rhyme  binds  and  beautifies  the  Poet's  lays 

As  London  Ladies  owe  their  shape  to  stays. 


In  this  the  Man  of  Taste  is  obviously  following  the 
reigning  fashion.  But  if  we  may  assume  Bramston 
himself  to  approve  what  his  hero  condemns,  he  must 
have  been  in  advance  of  his  age,  for  blank  verse  had 
but  sparse  advocates  at  this  time,  or  for  some  time 
to  come.  Neither  Gray,  nor  Johnson,  nor  Goldsmith 
were  ever  reconciled  to  what  the  last  of  them  styles 
"this  unharmonious  measure."  Goldsmith,  in  parti- 
cular, would  probably  have  been  in  exact  agreement 
with  the  couplet  as  to  the  controlling  powers  of  rhyme, 
"If  rhymes,  therefore,"  he  writes,  in  the  Enquiry  into 
Polite  Learning,1  "be  more  difficult  [than  blank  verse] , 
for  that  very  reason,  I  would  have  our  poets  write  in 
rhyme.  Such  a  restriction  upon  the  thought  of  a 
good  poet,  often  lifts  and  encreases  the  vehemence 
of  every  sentiment;  for  fancy,  like  a  fountain,  plays 
highest  by  diminishing  the  aperture."2 

The  Man  of  Taste's  idol,  in  matters  dramatic,  is 


*Ed.   1759,  p.   151. 

2  Montaigne  has  a  somewhat  similar  illustration :  "As  Cleanthes  said, 
that  as  the  voice  being  forciblie  pent  in  the  narrow  gullet  of  a  trumpet, 
at  last  issueth  forth  more  strong  and  shriller,  so  me  seemes,  that  a  sen- 
tence cunningly  and  closely  couched  in  measure-keeping  Posie,  darts  it 
selfe  forth  more  furiously,  and  wounds  me  even  to  the  quicke"  (Essayes, 
bk.  i.  ch.  xxv.    (Florio's  translation). 


32  DE  LIBRIS 

Colley  Cibber,  who,  however,  deserves  the  laurel  he 
wears,  not  for  The  Careless  Husband,  his  best  comedy, 
but  for  his  Epilogues  and  other  Play6. 

It  pleases  me,  that  Pope  unlaurell'd  goes, 

While  Cibber  wears  the  Bays  for  Play-house  Prose. 

So  Britain's  Monarch  once  uncover'd  sate, 

While  Bradshaw  bully'd  in  a  broad-brimmed  hat, — 

a  reminiscence  of  King  Charles's  trial  which  might 
have  been  added  to  Bramston  stock  quotations.  The 
productions  of  "CurlPs  chaste  press"  are  also  this 
connoisseur's  favourite  reading, — the  lives  of  players 
in  particular,  probably  on  the  now  obsolete  grounds 
set  forth  in  Carlyle's  essay  on  Scott.1  Among  these 
the  memoirs  of  Cibber's  "Lady  Betty  Modish," 
Mrs.  Oldfield,  then  lately  dead,  and  buried  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  are  not  obscurely  indicated. 

In  morals  our  friend — as  might  be  expected  circa 
1730 — is  a  Freethinker  and  Deist.  Tindal  is  his 
text-book :  his  breviary  the  Fable  of  the  Bees : — 

T'  improve  in  Morals  Mandevil  I  read, 
And  Tyndal's  Scruples  are  my  settled  Creed. 
I  travelPd  early,  and  I  soon  saw  through 
Religion  all,  e'er  I  was  twenty-two. 
Shame,  Pain,  or  Poverty  shall  I  endure, 
When  ropes  or  opium  can  my  ease  procure? 
When  money's  gone,  and  I  no  debts  can  pay, 
Self-murder  is  an  honourable  way. 


1  "It  has  been  said,  'There  are  no  English  lives  worth  reading  except 
those  of  Players,  who  by  the  nature  of  the  case  have  bidden  Respectability 
good-day.'  " 


BRAMSTON'S  "MAN  OF  TASTE"      33 

As  Pasaran  directs  I'd  end  my  life, 

And  kill  myself,  my  daughter,  and  my  wife. 

He  would,  of  course,  have  done  nothing  of  the  kind; 
nor,  for  the  matter  of  that,  did  his  Piedmontese 
preceptor.1 

Nil  admtrari  is  the  motto  of  the  Man  of  Taste 
in  Building,  where  he  is  naturally  at  home.  He  can 
see  no  symmetry  in  the  Banqueting  House,  or  in 
St.  Paul's  Covent  Garden,  or  even*  in  St.  Paul's  itself. 

Sure  wretched  Wren  was  taught  by  bungling  Jones, 
To  murder  mortar,  and  disfigure  stones! 

"Substantial"  Vanbrugh  he  likes — chiefly  because 
his  work  would  make  "such  noble  ruins."  Cost  is 
his  sole  criterion,  and  here  he,  too,  seems  to  glance 
obliquely  at  Canons : — 

Dorick,  Ionick,  shall  not  there  be  found, 

But  it  shall  cost  me  threescore  thousand  pound. 

But  this  was  moderate,  as  the  Edgware  "folly" 
reached  £250,000.  In  Gardening  he  follows  the 
latest  whim  for  landscape.  Here  is  his  burlesque  of 
the  principles  of  Bridgeman  and  Batty  Langley: — 

Does  it  not  merit  the  beholder's  praise, 

What's  high  to  sink?    and  what  is  low  to  raise? 


1  Count  Passeran  was  a  freethinking  nobleman  who  wrote  A  Philo- 
sophical Discourse  on  Death,  in  which  he  defended  suicide,  though  he 
refrained  from  resorting  to  it  himself.  Pope  refers  to  him  in  the  Epilogue 
to  the  Satires,  Dialogue  i.    124: — 

If  Blount  despatch'd  himself,  he  play'd  the  man, 
And   so  may'st  thou,   illustrious   Passeran  1 

D 


DE  LIBRIS 

Slopes  shall  ascend  where  once  a  green-house  stood, 
And  in  my  horse-pond  I  will  plant  a  wood. 
Let  misers  dread  the  hoarded  gold  to  waste, 
Expence  and  alteration  show  a  Taste. 

As  a  connoisseur  of  Painting  this  enlightened 
virtuoso  is  given  over  to  Hogarth's  hated  dealers 
in  the  Black  Masters: — 

In  curious  paintings  I'm  exceeding  nice, 

And  know  their  several  beauties  by  their  Price. 

Auctions  and  Sales  I  constantly  attend, 

But  chuse  my  pictures  by  a  skilful  Friend. 

Originals   and  copies  much  the  same, 

The  Picture's  value  is  the  painter's  name} 

Of  Sculpture  he  says — 

In  spite  of  Addison  and  ancient  Rome, 

Sir  Cloudesly  Shovel's  is  my  fav'rite  tomb.2 

How  oft  have  I  with  admiration  stood, 

To  view  some  City-magistrate  in  wood? 

I  gaze  with  pleasure  on  a  Lord  May'r's  head 

Cast  with  propriety  in  gilded  lead, — 

the  allusion  being  obviously  to  Cheere's  manufactory 
of  such  popular  garden  decorations  at  Hyde  Park 
Corner. 

In  Coins  and  Medals,  true  to  his  instinct  for  liking 

1  See  post,  "M.  Rouquet  on  the  Arts,"  p.  51. 

2  "Sir  Cloudesly  Shovel's  Monument  has  very  often  given  me  great 
Offence:  Instead  of  the  brave  rough  English  Admiral,  which  was  the 
distinguishing  Character  of  that  plain,  gallant  Man,  he  is  represented  on 
his  Tomb  [in  Westminster  Abbey]  by  the  Figure  of  a  Beau,  dressed  in  a 
long  Perriwig,  and  reposing  himself  upon  Velvet  Cushions  under  a  Canopy 
of   State"    {Spectator,    March   30,    171 1). 


BRAMSTON'S  "MAN  OF  TASTE"      35 

the  worst  the  best,  he  prefers  the  modern  to  the 
antique.  In  Music,  with  Hogarth's  Rake  two  years 
later,  he  is  all  for  that  "Dagon  of  the  nobility  and 
gentry,"  imported  song: — 

Without  Italian,  or  without  an  ear, 
To  Bononcini's  musick  I  adhere; — 

though  he  confesses  to  a  partiality  for  the  bagpipe  on 
the  ground  that  your  true  Briton  "loves  a  grumbling 
noise,"  and  he  favours  organs  and  the  popular 
oratorios.    But  his  "top  talent  is  a  bill  of  fare"  : — 

Sir  Loins  and  rumps  of  beef  offend  my  eyes,1 

Pleas'd  with  frogs  fricass[e]ed,  and  coxcomb-pies. 

Dishes  I  chuse  though  little,  yet  genteel, 

Snails2  the  first  course,  and  Peepers*  crown  the  meal. 

Pigs  heads  with  hair  on,  much  my  fancy  please, 

I  love  young  colly-flowers  if  stew'd  in  cheese, 

And  give  ten  guineas  for  a  pint  of  peas! 

No  tailing  servants  to  my  table  come, 

My  Grace  is  Silence,  and  my  waiter  Dumb. 

He  is  not  without  his  aspirations. 

Could  I  the  privilege  of  Peer  procure, 
The  rich  I'd  bully,  and  oppress  the  poor. 
To  give  is  wrong,  but  it  is  wronger  still, 
On  any  terms  to  pay  a  tradesman's  bill. 


1  As  they  did  those  of  Goldsmith's  "Beau  Tibbs."  "I  hate  your 
immense  loads  of  meat  .  .  .  extreme  disgusting  to  those  who  are  in  the 
least  acquainted  with  high  life"   {Citizen  of  the  World,   1762,  i.  241). 

2  The  edible  or  Roman  snail  (Helix  pomatia)  is  still  known  to  con- 
tinental cuisines — and  gipsy  camps.  It  was  introduced  into  England  as 
an  epicure's   dish   in   the  seventeenth   century. 

•Young  chickens. 


36  DE  LIBRIS 

I'd  make  the  insolent  Mechanicks  stay, 
And  keep  my  ready-money  all  for  play. 
I'd  try  if  any  pleasure  could  be  found 
In   tossing-up  for   twenty   thousand   pound. 
Had  I  whole  Counties,  I  to  White's  would  go, 
And  set  lands,  woods,  and  rivers  at  a  throw. 
But  should  I  meet  with  an  unlucky  run, 
And   at  a  throw  be  gloriously  undone; 
My  debts  of  honour  I'd  discharge  the  first, 
Let  all  my  lawful  creditors  be  curst. 

Here  he  perfectly  exemplifies  that  connexion 
between  connoisseurship  and  play  which  Fielding 
discovers  in  Book  xiii.  of  Tom  Jones.1  An  anecdote 
of  C.  J.  Fox  aptly  exhibits  the  final  couplet  in 
action,  and  proves  that  fifty  years  later,  at  least, 
the  same  convenient  code  was  in  operation.  Fox 
once  won  about  eight  thousand  pounds  at  cards. 
Thereupon  an  eager  creditor  promptly  presented 
himself,  and  pressed  for  payment.  "Impossible,  Sir," 
replied  Fox,  "I  must  first  discharge  my  debts  of 
honour."  The  creditor  expostulated.  "Well,  Sir, 
give  me  your  bond."  The  bond  was  delivered  to 
Fox,  who  tore  it  up  and  flung  the  pieces  into  the 
fire.  "Now,  Sir,"  said  he,  "my  debt  to  you  is  a 
debt  of  honour,"  and  immediately  paid  him.2 

1  "But  the  science  of  gaming  is  that  which  above  all  others  employs 
their  thoughts  [i.e.  the  thoughts  of  the  'young  gentlemen  of  our  times']. 
These  are  the  studies  of  their  graver  hours,  while  for  their  amusements 
they  have  the  vast  circle  of  connoisseurship,  painting,  music,  statuary,  and 
natural  philosophy,  or  rather  unnatural,  which  deals  in  the  wonderful,  and 
knows  nothing  of  nature,  except  her  monsters  and  imperfections"   (ch.  v.). 

2  Table-Talk  of  Samuel  Rogers  [by  Dyce],   1856,  p.  7$. 


BRAMSTON'S  "MAN  OF  TASTE"      37 

But  we  must  abridge  our  levies  on  Pope's  imitator. 
In  Dress  the  Man  of  Taste's  aim  seems  to  have 
been  to  emulate  his  own  footman,  and  at  this  point 
comes  in  the  already  quoted  reference  to  velvet 
"inexpressibles" — (a  word  which,  the  reader  may 
be  interested  to  learn,  is  as  old  as  1793).  His 
"pleasures,"  as  might  be  expected,  like  those  of 
Goldsmith's  Switzers,  "are  but  low" — 

To  boon  companions  I  my  time  would  give, 
With  players,  pimps,  and  parasites  I'd  live. 
I  would  with  Jockeys  from  Newmarket  dine, 
And  to  Rough-riders  give  my  choicest  wine.  .  . 
My  ev'nings  all  I  would  with  sharpers  spend, 
And  make  the   Thief-catcher  my  bosom  friend. 
In  Fig,  the  Prize-fighter,  by  day  delight, 
And  sup  with  Colly  Gibber  ev'ry  night. 

At  which  point — and  probably  in  his  cups — we 
leave  our  misguided  fine  gentleman  of  1733,  doubt- 
less a  fair  sample  of  many  of  his  class  under  the 
second  George,  and  not  wholly  unknown  under  that 
monarch's  successors — even  to  this  hour,  he  jour  va 
passer;  mats  la  folie  ne  pass  era  pas! 

A  parting  quotation  may  serve  to  illustrate  one 
of  those  changes  of  pronunciation  which  have  taken 
place  in  so  many  English  words.  Speaking  of  his 
villa,  or  country-box,  the  Man  of  Taste  says — 

Pots  o'er  the  door  I'll  place  like  Cits  balconies, 
Which  Bently  calls  the  Gardens  of  Adonis. 

^     OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


38  DE  LIBRIS 

To  make  this  a  peg  for  a  dissertation  on  the  jars 
of  lettuce  and  fennel  grown  by  the  Greeks  for  the 
annual  Adonis  festivals,  is  needless.  But  it  may  be 
noted  that  Bramston,  with  those  of  his  day, — Swift 
excepted, — scans  the  "o"  in  balcony  long,  a  practice 
which  continued  far  into  the  nineteenth  century. 
"Contemplate,"  said  Rogers,  "is  bad  enough;  but 
balcony  makes  me  sick."1  And  even  in  1857,  two 
years  after  Rogers's  death,  the  late  Frederick  Locker, 
writing  of  Piccadilly,  speaks  of  "Old  Q's"  well- 
known  window  in  that  thoroughfare  as  "Primrose 
balcony." 

Table-Talk,  1856,  p.  248. 


THE  PASSIONATE  PRINTER  TO 
HIS  LOVE 


39 


THE  PASSIONATE  PRINTER  TO 
HIS  LOVE 

{Whose  name  is  Amanda) 

With  Apologies  to  the  Shade  of  Christopher  Marlowe 

Come  live  with  me  and  be  my  Dear; 

And  till  that  happy  bond  shall  lapse, 
I'll  set  your  Pourings  in  Brevier,1 

Your  Praises  in  the  largest  CAPS. 

There's  Diamond — 'tis  for  your  Eyes; 

There's  Ruby — that  will  match  your  Lips; 
Pearl,  for  your  Teeth ;  and  Minion-size 

To  suit  your  dainty  Finger-tips. 

In  Nonpareil  I'll  put  your  Face ; 

In  Rubric  shall  your  Blushes  rise; 
There  is  no  Bourgeois  in  your  Case; 

Your  Form  can  never  need  "Revise" 

Your  Cheek  seems  "Ready  for  the  Press" ; 

Your  Laugh  as  Clarendon  is  clear; 
There's  more  distinction  in  your  Dress 

Than  in  the  oldest  Elzevir. 

1  "Pronounced  Bre-veer"    (Printers'  Vocabulary). 
41 


42  DE  LIBRIS 

So  with  me  live,  and  with  me  die ; 

And  may  no  "Finis"  e'er  intrude 
To  break  into  mere  "Printers'  Pie" 

The  Type  of  our  Beatitude ! 

(Erratum. — If  my  suit  you  flout, 
And  choose  some  happier  Youth  to  wed, 

'Tis  but  to  cross  Amanda  out, 
And  read  another  name  instead.) 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS 


43 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS 

M.  Rouquet's  book  is  a  rare  duodecimo  of  some 
two  hundred  pages,  bound  in  sheep,  which,  in  the 
copy  before  us,  has  reached  that  particular  stage 
of  disintegration  when  the  scarfskin,  without  much 
persuasion,  peels  away  in  long  strips.  Its  title  is — 
L'Etat  des  Arts,  en  Angleterre.  Par  M.  Rouquet,  de 
V  Academie  Roy  ale  de  Peinture  6f  de  Sculpture;  and 
it  is  "imprime  a  Paris  "  though  it  was  to  be  obtained 
from  John  Nourse,  "Libraire  dans  le  Strand,  proche 
Temple-barr" — a  well-known  importer  of  foreign 
books,  and  one  of  Henry  Fielding's  publishers.  The 
date  is  1755,  being  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  the 
reign  of  His  Majesty  King  George  the  Second — a 
reign  not  generally  regarded  as  favourable  to  art 
of  any  kind.  In  what  month  of  1755  the  little 
volume  was  first  put  forth  does  not  appear;  but  it 
must  have  been  before  October,  when  Nourse  issued 
an  English  version.  There  is  a  dedication,  in  the 
approved  French  fashion,  to  the  Marquis  de  Marigny, 
u Direct eur  £sf  Ordonnateur  General  de  ses  Bdtimens, 
Jardins,  Arts,  Academies  £sf  Manufactures"  to  Lewis 

45 


46  DE  LIBRIS 

the  Fifteenth,  above  which  is  a  delicate  headpiece 
by  M.  Charles-Nicolas  Cochin  (the  greatest  of  the 
family) ,  where  a  couple  of  that  artist's  well-nourished 
amorini,  insecurely  attached  to  festoons,  distribute 
palms  and  laurels  in  vacuity  under  a  coroneted 
oval  displaying  fishes.  For  Monsieur  Abel-Frangois 
Poisson,  Marquis  de  Marigny  at  de  Menars,  was 
the  younger  brother  of  Jeanne-Antoinette  Poisson, 
the  celebrated  Marquise  de  Pompadour.  Cochin's 
etching  is  dated  "1754";  and  the  "Approbation" 
at  the  end  of  the  volume  bears  his  signature  in  his 
capacity  of  Censeur. 

Of  the  "M.  Rouquet"  of  the  title-page  biography 
tells  us  little;  but  it  may  be  well,  before  speaking 
of  his  book,  to  bring  that  little  together.  He  was 
a  Swiss  Protestant  of  French  extraction,  born  at 
Geneva  in  1702.  His  Christian  names  were  Jean- 
Andre;  and  he  had  come  to  England  from  his 
native  land  towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  George 
the  First.  Many  of  his  restless  compatriots  also 
sought  these  favoured  shores.  Labelye,  who  rose 
from  a  barber's  shop  to  be  the  architect  of  London 
Bridge;  Liotard,  once  regarded  as  a  rival  of 
Reynolds;  Michael  Moser,  eventually  Keeper  of 
the  Royal  Academy,  had  all  migrated  from  the 
"stormy  mansions"  where,  in  the  words  of  Gold- 
smith's philosophic  Wanderer — 

Winter  ling'ring  chills  the  lap  of  May. 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS        47 

Like  Moser,  Rouquet  was  a  chaser  and  an  enameller. 
He  lodged  on  the  south  side  of  Leicester  Fields, 
in  a  house  afterwards  the  residence  of  another 
Switzer  of  the  same  craft,  that  miserable  Theodore 
Gardelle,  who  in  1761  murdered  his  landlady,  Mrs. 
King.  Of  Rouquet's  activities  as  an  artist  in 
England  there  are  scant  particulars.  The  ordinary 
authorities  affirm  that  he  imitated  and  rivalled  the 
popular  miniaturist  and  enameller,  Christian  Zincke, 
who  retired  from  practice  in  1746;  and  he  is  loosely 
described  as  uthe  companion  of  Hogarth,  Garrick, 
Foote,  and  the  wits  of  the  day."  Of  his  relations 
with  Foote  and  Garrick  there  is  scant  record;  but 
with  Hogarth,  his  near  neighbour  in  the  Fields, 
he  was  certainly  well  acquainted,  since  in  1746  he 
prepared  explanations  in  French  for  a  number  of 
Hogarth's  prints.  These  took  the  form  of  letters 
to  a  friend  in  Paris,  and  are  supposed  to  have  been, 
if  not  actually  inspired,  at  least  approved  by  the 
painter.  They  usually  accompanied  all  the  sets  of 
Hogarth's  engravings  which  went  abroad;  and, 
according  to  George  Steevens,  it  was  Hogarth's 
intention  ultimately  to  have  them  translated  and 
enlarged.  Rouquet  followed  these  a  little  later  by 
a  separate  description  of  "The  March  to  Finchley," 
designed  specially  for  the  edification  of  Marshal 
Foucquet  de  Belle-Isle,  who,  when  the  former  letters 
had  been  written,  was  a  prisoner  of  war  at  Windsor. 


48  DE  LIBRIS 

In  a  brief  introduction  to  this  last,  the  author, 
hitherto  unnamed,  is  spoken  of  as  "Mr.  Rouquet, 
connu  par  ses  Ouvrages  dy  Email." 

After  thirty  years'  sojourn  in  this  country, 
Rouquet  transferred  himself  to  Paris.  At  what 
precise  date  he  did  this  is  not  stated,  but  by  a  letter 
to  Hogarth  from  the  French  capital,  printed  by 
John  Ireland,  the  original  of  which  is  in  the  British 
Museum,  he  was  there,  and  had  been  there  several 
months,  in  March  1753.  The  letter  gives  a  highly 
favourable  account  of  its  writer's  fortunes.  Business 
is  "coming  in  very  smartly,"  he  says.  He  has  been 
excellently  received,  and  is  "perpetualy  imploy'd." 
There  is  far  more  encouragement  for  modern  enter- 
prise in  Paris  than  there  is  in  London;  and  some 
of  his  utterances  must  have  rejoiced  the  soul  of  his 
correspondent.  As  this,  for  instance —  "The  hum- 
bug virtu  is  much  more  out  of  fashon  here  than  in 
England,  free  thinking  upon  that  &  other  topicks 
is  more  common  here  than  amongst  you  if 
possible,  old  pictures  &  old  stories  fare's  alike, 
a  dark  picture  is  become  a  damn'd  picture."  On 
this  account,  he  inquires  anxiously  as  to  the  publica- 
tion of  his  friend's  forthcoming  Analysis;  he  has 
been  raising  expectations  about  it,  and  he  wishes 
to  be  the  first  to  introduce  it  into  France.  From 
other  sources  we  learn  that  (perhaps  owing  to  his 
relations  with  Belle-Isle,  who  had  been  released  in 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS        49 

1745)  he  had  been  taken  up  by  Marigny,  and 
also  by  Cochin,  then  keeper  of  the  King's  Drawings, 
and  soon  to  be  Secretary  to  the  Academy,  of  which 
Rouquet  himself,  by  express  order  of  Lewis  the 
Fifteenth,  was  made  a  member.  Finally,  as  in  the 
case  of  Cochin,  apartments  were  assigned  to  him  in 
the  Louvre.  Whether  he  ever  returned  to  this 
country  is  doubtful;  but,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
fitat  des  Arts  was  printed  at  Paris  in  1755.  That  it 
was  suggested — or  "commanded" — by  Mme.  de 
Pompadour's  connoisseur  brother,  to  whom  it  was 
inscribed,  is  a  not  unreasonable  supposition. 

In  any  case,  M.  Rouquet's  definition  of  the 
"Arts"  is  a  generous  one,  almost  as  wide  as 
Marigny's  powers,  already  sufficiently  set  forth 
at  the  outset  of  this  paper.  For  not  only — as 
in  duty  bound — does  he  treat  of  Architecture, 
Sculpture,  Painting  and  Engraving,  but  he  also 
has  chapters  on  Printing,  Porcelain,  Gold-  and 
Silver-smiths'  Work,  Jewelry,  Music,  Declamation, 
Auctions,  Shop-fronts,  Cooking,  and  even  on 
Medicine  and  Surgery.  Oddly  enough,  he  says 
nothing  of  one  notable  art  with  which  Marigny 
was  especially  identified,  that  "art  of  creating 
landscape" — as  Walpole  happily  calls  Gardening — 
which,  in  this  not  very  "shining  period,"  entered 
upon  a  fresh  development  under  Bridgeman  and 
William   Kent.     Although   primarily  a   Londoner, 


50  DE  LIBRIS 

one  would  think  that  M.  Rouquet  must  certainly 
have  had  some  experience,  if  not  of  the  efforts 
of  the  innovators,  at  least  of  the  very  Batavian 
preformances  of  Messrs.  London  and  Wise  of 
Brompton ;  or  that  he  should  have  found  at  Nonsuch 
or  Theobalds — at  Moor  Park  or  Hampton  Court 
— the  pretext  for  some  of  his  pages — if  only  to 
ridicule  those  "verdant  sculptures"  at  which  Pope, 
who  played  no  small  part  in  the  new  movement, 
had  laughed  in  the  Guardian;  or  those  fantastic 
"coats  of  arms  and  mottoes  in  yew,  box  and  holly" 
over  which  Walpole  also  made  merry  long  after 
in  the  famous  essay  so  neatly  done  into  French  by 
his  friend  the  Due  de  Nivernais.  M.  Rouquet's 
curious  reticence  in  this  matter  cannot  have  been 
owing  to  any  consideration  for  Hogarth's  old  enemy, 
William  Kent,  for  Kent  had  been  dead  seven  years 
when  the  Etat  des  Arts  made  its  appearance. 

If,  for  lack  of  space,  we  elect  to  pass  by  certain 
preliminary  reflections  which  the  Monthly  Review 
rather  unkindly  dismisses  as  a  "tedious  jumble," 
M.  Rouquet's  first  subject  is  History  Painting,  a 
branch  of  the  art  which,  under  George  the  Second, 
attained  to  no  great  excellence.  For  this  M.  Rouquet 
gives  three  main  reasons,  the  first  being  that 
afterwards  advanced  by  Hogarth  and  Reynolds, 
namely, — the  practical  exclusion,  in  Protestant 
countries,   of  pictures    from   churches.     A   second 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS         51 

cause  was  the  restriction  of  chamber  decorations 
to  portraits  and  engravings;  and  a  third,  the  craze 
of  the  connoisseur  for  Hogarth's  hated  "Black 
Masters,"  the  productions  of  defunct  foreigners. 
And  this  naturally  brings  about  the  following 
digression,  quite  in  Hogarth's  own  way,  against 
that  contemporary  charlatan,  the  picture-dealer: — 
"English  painters  have  an  obstacle  to  overcome, 
which  equally  impedes  the  progress  of  their  talents 
and  of  their  fortune.  They  have  to  contend  with 
a  class  of  men  whose  business  it  is  to  sell  pictures; 
and  as,  for  these  persons,  traffic  in  the  works  of 
living,  and  above  all  of  native  artists,  would  be 
impossible,  they  make  a  point  of  decrying  them, 
and,  as  far  as  they  can,  of  confirming  amateurs  with 
whom  they  have  to  deal  in  the  ridiculous  idea  that 
the  older  a  picture  is  the  more  valuable  it  becomes. 
See,  say  they  (speaking  of  some  modern  effort),  it 
still  shines  with  that  ignoble  freshness  which  is  to 
be  found  in  nature;  Time  will  have  to  indue  it 
with  his  learned  smoke — with  that  sacred  cloud 
which  must  some  day  hide  it  from  the  profane  eyes 
of  the  vulgar  in  order  to  reveal  to  the  initiated 
alone  the  mysterious  beauties  of  a  venerable 
antiquity." 

These  words  are  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Hogarth's 
later  "Time  smoking  a  Picture."  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
they  are  reproduced  almost  textually  from  the  writer's 


52  DE  LIBRIS 

letter  of  five  years  earlier  on  the  "March  to  Finchley." 
To  return,  however,  to  History  Painting.  Accord- 
ing to  Rouquet,  its  leading  exponent1  under  George 
the  Second  was  Francis  Hayman  of  the  "large  noses 
and  shambling  legs,"  now  known  chiefly  as  a  crony 
of  Hogarth,  and  a  facile  but  ineffectual  illustrator  of 
Shakespeare  and  Cervantes.  In  1754,  however,  his 
pictures  of  See-Saw,  Hot  Cockles,  Blind  Man's  Buff, 
and  the  like,  for  the  supper-boxes  at  Vauxhall 
Gardens,  with  Sayer's  prints  therefrom,  had  made  his 
name  familiar,  although  he  had  not  yet  painted  those 
more  elaborate  compositions  in  the  large  room  next 
the  Rotunda,  over  which  Fanny  Burney's  "Holborn 
Beau,"  Mr.  Smith,  comes  to  such  terrible  grief  in 
ch.  xlvi.  of  Evelina.  But  he  had  contributed  a 
"Finding  of  Moses"  to  the  New  Foundling  Hospital, 
which  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  Court  Room  there, 
in  company  with  three  other  pictures  executed  con- 
currently for  the  remaining  compartments,  Joseph 
Highmore's  "Hagar  and  Ishmael,"  James  WihVs 
"Suffer  little  Children,"  and  Hogarth's  "Moses 
brought  to  Pharaoh's  Daughter" — the  best  of  the 
four,  as  well  as  the  most  successful  of  Hogarth's 
historical  pieces.  All  these,  then  recently  installed, 
are  mentioned  by  Rouquet. 


1  This  is  confirmed  by  Arthur  Murphy:  "Every  Thing  is  put  out  of 
Hand  by  this  excellent  Artist  with  the  utmost  Grace  and  Delicacy,  and  his 
History-Pieces  have,  besides  their  beautiful  Colouring,  the  most  lively 
Expression  of  Character"   (Gray's  Inn  Journal,  February  9,   1754)- 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS         53 

It  will  be  observed  that  he  says  nothing  about 
Hogarth's  earlier  and  more  ambitious  efforts  in  the 
"Grand  Style,"  the  "Pool  of  Bethesda"  and  the 
"Good  Samaritan"  at  St.  Bartholomew's,  nor  of  the 
"Paul  before  Felix,"  also  lately  added  to  Lincoln's  Inn 
Hall — omissions  which  must  have  sadly  exercised  the 
"author"  of  those  monumental  works  when  he  came 
to  read  his  Swiss  friend's  little  treatise.  Nor,  for  the 
matter  of  that,  does  M.  Rouquet,  when  he  treats  of 
portrait,  refer  to  Hogarth's  masterpiece  in  this  kind, 
the  full-length  of  Captain  Coram  at  the  Foundling. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  says  a  great  deal  about 
Hogarth  which  has  no  very  obvious  connection  with 
History  Painting.  He  discusses  the  Analysis  and 
the  serpentine  Line  of  Beauty  with  far  more  insight 
than  many  of  its  author's  contemporaries;  refers 
feelingly  to  the  Act  by  which  in  1735  the  painter 
had  so  effectively  cornered  the  pirates;  and  finally 
defines  his  satirical  pictures  succinctly  as  follows: — 
"M.  Hogarth  has  given  to  England  a  new  class  of 
pictures.  They  contain  a  great  number  of  figures, 
usually  seven  or  eight  inches  high.  These  remark- 
able performances  are,  strictly  speaking,  the  history 
of  certain  vices,  to  a  foreign  eye  often  a  little  over- 
charged, but  always  full  of  wit  and  novelty.  He 
understands  in  his  compositions  how  to  make 
pleasant  pretext  for  satirising  the  ridiculous  and 
the  vicious,  by  firm  and  significant  strokes,  all  of 


54  DE  LTBRIS 

which  are  prompted  by  a  lively,  fertile  and  judicious 
imagination." 

From  History  Painting  to  Portrait  in  Oil,  the 
title  given  by  M.  Rouquet  to  his  next  chapter, 
transition  is  easy.  Some  of  the  artists  mentioned 
above  were  also  portrait  painters.  Besides  Captain 
Coram,  for  example,  Hogarth  had  already  executed 
that  admirable  likeness  of  himself  which  is  now  at 
Trafalgar  Square,  and  which  Rouquet  must  often 
have  seen  in  its  home  at  Leicester  Fields.  Highmore 
too  had  certainly  at  this  date  painted  more  than 
one  successful  portrait  of  Samuel  Richardson,  the 
novelist;  and  even  Hayman  had  made  essay  in  this 
direction  with  the  picture  of  Lord  Orford,  now  in 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  A  good  many  of  the 
painters  of  the  last  reign  must  also,  during  Rouquet's 
residence  in  England,  have  been  alive  and  active,  e.g. 
Jervas,  Dahl,  Aikman,  Thornhill  and  Richardson. 
But  M.  Rouquet  devotes  most  of  his  pages  in  this 
respect  to  Kneller,  whose  not  altogether  beneficent 
influence  long  survived  him.  Strangely  enough, 
Rouquet  does  not  mention  that  egregious  and 
fashionable  face-painter,  Sir  Joshua's  master,  Thomas 
Hudson,  whose  "fair  tied-wigs,  blue  velvet  coats, 
and  white  satin  waistcoats"  (all  executed  by  his 
assistants)  reigned  undisputed  until  he  was  eclipsed 
by  his  greater  pupil.  The  two  artists  in  portraiture 
selected  by  Rouquet  for  special  notice   are  Allan 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS        55 

Ramsay  and  the  younger  Vanloo  (Jean  Baptiste). 
Both  were  no  doubt  far  above  their  predecessors; 
but  Ramsay  would  specially  appeal  to  Rouquet  by 
his  continental  training,  and  Vanloo  by  his  French 
manner  and  the  superior  variety  of  his  attitudes.1 
The  only  other  name  Rouquet  recalls  is  that  of 
the  drapery-painter  Joseph  Vanhaken;  and  we 
suspect  it  is  to  Rouquet  that  we  owe  the  pleasant 
anecdote  of  the  two  painters  who,  for  the  sum  of 
£800  a  year,  pre-empted  his  exclusive  and  inestimable 
services,  to  the  wholesale  discomfiture  of  their  brethren 
of  the  brush.  The  rest  shall  be  told  in  Rouquet's 
words: — "The  best  [artists]  were  no  longer  able  to 
paint  a  hand,  a  coat,  a  background;  they  were  forced 
to  learn,  which  meant  additional  labour — what  a 
misfortune!  Henceforth  there  arrived  no  more  to 
Vanhaken  from  different  quarters  of  London,  nor  by 
coach  from  the  most  remote  towns  of  England, 
canvases  of  all  sizes,  where  one  or  more  heads  were 
painted,  under  which  the  painter  who  forwarded 
them  had  been  careful  to  add,  pleasantly  enough,  the 


1  Another  French  writer,  the  Abbe  le  Blanc,  gives  a  depressing  account 
of  English  portraits  before  Vanloo  came  to  England:  "At  some  distance 
one  might  easily  mistake  a  dozen  of  them  for  twelve  copies  of  the  same 
original.  Some  have  the  head  turned  to  the  left,  others  to  the  right;  and 
this  is  the  most  sensible  difference  to  be  observed  between  them.  More- 
over, excepting  the  face,  you  find  in  all  the  same  neck,  the  same  arms^ 
the  same  flesh,  the  same  attitude;  and  to  say  all,  you  observe  no  more  life 
than  design  in  those  pretended  portraits.  Properly  speaking,  they  [the 
artists]  are  not  painters,  they  know  how  to  lay  colours  on  the  canvas;  but 
they  know  not  how  to  animate  it"  (Letters  on  the  English  and  French 
Nations,   1747,  i.    160), 


S6  DE  LIBRIS 

description  of  the  figures,  stout  or  slim,  great  or 
small,  which  were  to  be  appended.  Nothing  could 
be  more  absurd  than  this  arrangement;  but  it  would 
exist  still — if  Vanhaken  existed."1 

La  peinture  a  I'huile,  O  est  bien  difficile;  Mais 
c'est  beaucoup  plus  beau  Que  la  peinture  a  Veau" 
About  la  peinture  a  Veau,  M.  Rouquet  says  very  little, 
in  all  probability  because  the  English  Water  Colour 
School,  which,  with  the  advance  of  topographic  art, 
grew  so  rapidly  in  the  second  half  of  the  century, 
was  yet  to  come.  He  refers,  however,  with  approval 
to  the  gouaches  of  Joseph  Goupy,  Lady  Burlington's 
drawing-master,  perhaps  better  known  to  posterity 
by  his  (or  her  ladyship's)  caricature  of  Handel  as  the 
"Charming  Brute."  (Caricature,  by  the  way,  is  a 
branch  of  Georgian  Art  which  M.  Rouquet  neglects.) 
As  regards  landscape  and  animal  painting,  he  "abides 
in  generalities" ;  but  he  must  have  been  acquainted 
with  the  sea  pieces  of  Monamy,  and  Hogarth's  and 
Walpole's  friend  Samuel  Scott;  and  should,  one 
would  think,  have  known  of  the  horses  and  dogs  of 
Wootton  and  Seymour.  Upon  Enamel  he  might  be 
expected  to  enlarge,  although  he  mentions  but  one 
master,  his  own  model,  Zincke,  who  carried  the  art 
of  portrait  in  this  way  much  farther  than  any 
predecessor.  Moreover,  like  Petitot,  he  made  dis- 
coveries which  he  was  wise  enough  to  keep  to  himself. 

1  He  died  in   1749. 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS        57 

"It  is  most  humiliating,"  says  Rouquet,  "for  the 
genius  of  painting  that  it  can  sometimes  exist  alone. 
M.  Zincke  left  no  pupil."  Seeing  that  Rouquet  is 
also  accused  of  jealously  guarding  his  own  contribu- 
tions to  the  perfection  of  his  art,  the  words  are — as 
Diderot  says — remarkable. 

With  Sculpture,  chiefly  employed  at  this  date 
for  mortuary  purposes,  he  has  less  opportunity  of 
being  indefinite,  since  there  were  but  three  notabilities, 
Scheemakers,  Rysbraek,and  Roubillac, — all  foreigners. 
Of  these  Scheemakers,  whom  Chesterfield  regarded 
as  a  mere  stone-cutter,  and  who  did  the  Shakespeare 
in  Westminster  Abbey,  is  certainly  the  least  con- 
siderable. Next  comes  Rysbraek,  whom  Walpole 
and  Rouquet  would  put  highest,  the  latter  apparently 
because  Rysbraek  had  been  spoken  of  contemptuously 
by  the  Abbe  le  Blanc.  But  the  first  is  assuredly 
Roubillac,  whose  monument  to  Mrs.  Nightingale, 
however,  belongs  to  a  later  date  than  the  Etat  des 
Arts,  though  he  had  already  achieved  the  masterly 
figure  of  Eloquence  on  the  Argyll  monument.  The 
only  other  sculptor  referred  to  by  Rouquet  is  Gabriel 
Cibber,  whose  statues  of  Madness  and  Melancholy, 
long  at  Bedlam,  and  now  at  South  Kensington, 
certainly  deserve  his  praise.  But  Cibber  died  in 
1700,  and  belongs  to  the  Caroline  epoch.  He 
no  doubt  owes  his  place  in  the  £tat  des  Arts  to 
the  fact  that  he  had  been  abused  in  the  already- 


58  DE  LIBRIS 

mentioned    Letters    on    the    English    and    French 
Nations. 

At  this  point  we  may  turn  M.  Rouquet's  pages 
more  rapidly.  It  is  not  necessary  to  linger  over  his 
account  of  Silk  Stuffs,  more  excellent  in  his  opinion 
by  their  material  than  their  make  up.  Under 
Medallists  he  commends  the  clever  medals  of  great 
men  by  his  compatriot,  Anthony  Dassier;  under 
Printing  he  refers  to  that  liberty  of  the  Press  which, 
in  England,  amounted  to  impunity.  "A  few  too 
thinly  disguised  blasphemies;  a  few  too  rash  reflec- 
tions upon  the  Government,  a  few  defamatory  libels 
— are  the  sole  things  which,  at  the  present  time,  are 
not  allowed."  And  this  brings  about  the  following 
lively  and  very  accurate  description  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  newspaper : — "One  of  the  most  notable  peculi- 
arities which  liberty  of  the  Press  produces  in  England, 
is  the  swarm  of  fugitive  sheets  and  half-sheets  which 
one  sees  break  forth  every  morning,  except  Sunday, 
covering  all  the  coffee-house  tables.  Twenty  of  these 
different  papers,  under  different  titles,  appear  each 
day;  some  contain  a  moral  or  philosophical  discourse; 
the  majority  of  the  rest  offer  political,  and  frequently 
seditious,  comments  on  some  party  question.  In 
them  is  to  be  found  the  news  of  Europe,  England, 
London,  and  the  day  before.  Their  authors  profess 
to  be  familiar  with  the  most  secret  deliberations  of 
the   Cabinet,    which  they  make  public.     If  a  fire 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS        59 

occurs  in  a  chimney  or  elsewhere;  if  a  theft  or  a 
murder  has  taken  place;  if  any  one  commits  suicide 
from  ennui  or  despair,  the  public  is  informed  thereof 
on  the  morning  after  with  the  utmost  amount  of  detail. 
After  these  articles  come  advertisements  of  all  sorts, 
and  in  very  great  numbers.  In  addition  to  those  of 
different  things  which  it  is  desired  to  let,  sell  or  pur- 
chase, there  are  some  that  are  amusing.  If  a  man's 
wife  runs  away  he  declares  that  he  will  not  be  liable 
for  any  debts  she  may  contract;  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  this  precaution,  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
country,  is  essential  if  he  desires  to  secure  himself 
from  doing  so.  He  threatens  with  all  the  rigour  of 
the  law  those  who  dare  to  give  his  wife  an  asylum. 
Another  publishes  the  particulars  of  his  fortune,  his 
age  and  his  position,  and  adds  that  he  is  prepared  to 
unite  himself  to  any  woman  whose  circumstances  are 
such  as  he  requires  and  describes;  he  further  gives  the 
address  where  communications  must  be  sent  for  the 
negotiation  and  conclusion  of  the  business.  There 
are  other  notices  which  describe  a  woman  who  has 
been  seen  at  the  play  or  elsewhere,  and  announces  that 
some  one  has  determined  to  marry  her.  If  any  one  has 
a  dream  which  seems  to  him  to  predict  that  a  certain 
number  will  be  lucky  in  the  lottery,  he  proclaims 
that  fact,  and  offers  a  consideration  to  the  possessor 
of  the  number  if  he  cares  to  dispose  of  it." 

After  these  come  the  advertisements  of  the  Quack 


60  DE  LIBRIS 

Doctors.  Of  the  account  of  belles-lettres  in  1754, 
two  years  after  Amelia  and  in  the  actual  year  of  Sir 
Charles  Grandison,  M.  Rouquet's  report  is  not  flat- 
tering : — "The  presses  of  England,  made  celebrated  by 
so  many  masterpieces  of  wit  and  science,  now  scarcely 
print  anything  but  miserable  and  insipid  romances, 
repulsive  volumes,  frigid  and  tedious  letters,  where 
the  most  tasteless  puerility  passes  for  wit  and  genius, 
and  an  inflamed  imagination  exerts  itself  under  the 
pretext  of  forming  manners."  It  is  possible  that 
the  last  lines  are  aimed  at  Richardson;  certainly  they 
describe  the  post-Richardsonian  novel.  But  that  the 
passage  does  not  in  any  part  refer  to  Fielding  is  clear 
from  the  fact  that  the  writer  presently  praises  Joseph 
Andrews,  coupling  it  with  Gil  Bias. 

Mezzotint,  Gem-cutting,  Chasing  (which  serves  to 
bring  in  M.  Rouquet's  countryman,  Moser),  Jewelry, 
China,  (i.e.  Chelsea  ware)  are  all  successfully  treated 
with  more  or  less  minuteness,  while,  under  Archi- 
tecture, are  described  the  eighteenth-century  house, 
and  the  new  bridge  at  Westminster  of  another  Swiss, 
Labelye,  who  is  not  named.  "The  architect  is  a 
foreigner,"  says  Rouquet,  who  considered  he  had 
been  inadequately  rewarded.  "It  must  be  confessed 
(he  adds  drily)  that  in  England  this  is  a  life- 
long disqualification."  From  Architecture  the  writer 
passes  to  the  oratory  of  the  Senate,  the  Pulpit  and 
the  Stage.     In  the  last  case  exception  is  made  for 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS         61 

"le  celebre  M.  Garic"  whose  only  teacher  is  declared 
to  be  Nature.  As  regards  the  rest,  M.  Rouquet  thus 
describes  the  prevailing  style : — "The  declamation  of 
the  English  stage  is  turgid,  full  of  affectation,  and 
perpetually  pompous.  Among  other  peculiarities,  it 
frequently  admits  a  sort  of  dolorous  exclamation, — 
a  certain  long-drawn  tone  of  voice,  so  woeful  and  so 
lugubrious  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  depressed 
by  it."  This  reads  like  a  recollection  of  Quin  in  the 
Horatio  of  Rowe's  Fair  Penitent, 

Upon  Cookery  M.  Rouquet  is  edifying;  and  con- 
cerning the  eighteenth-century  physician,  with  his  tye- 
wig  and  gilt-head  cane,  sprightly  and  not  unmalicious. 
But  we  must  now  confine  ourselves  to  quoting  a 
few  detached  passages  from  this  discursive  chronicle. 
The  description  of  Ranelagh  ( in  the  chapter  on  Music) 
is  too  lengthy  to  reproduce.  Here  is  that  of  the 
older  Vauxhall: — "The  Vauxhall  concert  takes  place 
in  a  garden  singularly  decorated.  The  Director  of 
Amusements  in  this  garden  [Jonathan  Tyers]  gains 
and  spends  successively  considerable  annual  sums. 
He  was  born  for  such  enterprises.  At  once  spirited 
and  tasteful,  he  shrinks  from  no  expense  where  the 
amusement  of  the  public  is  concerned,  and  the  public, 
in  its  turn,  repays  him  liberally.  Every  year  he  adds 
some  fresh  decoration,  some  new  and  exceptional 
scene.  Sculpture,  Painting,  Music,  bestir  themselves 
periodically  to  render  this  resort  more  agreeable  by 


62  DE  LIBRIS 

the  variety  of  their  different  productions:  in  this  way 
opportunities  of  relaxation  are  infinite  in  England, 
above  all  at  London;  and  thus  Music  plays  a 
prominent  part.  The  English  take  their  pleasure 
without  amusing  themselves,  or  amuse  themselves 
without  enjoyment,  except  at  table,  and  there  only 
up  to  the  point  when  sleep  supervenes  to  the  fumes 
of  wine  and  tobacco." 

Elsewhere  M.  Rouquet,  like  M.  le  Blanc  before 
him,  is  loud  in  his  denunciation  of  the  pitiful 
practices  of  Vails-giving,  which  blocks  the  vestibule 
of  every  English  house  with  an  army  of  servants 
"ranged  in  line,  according  to  their  rank,"  and  ready 
"to  receive,  or  rather  exact,  the  contribution  of 
every  guest."  The  excellent  Jonas  Hanway  wrote 
a  pamphlet  reprehending  this  objectionable  custom. 
Hogarth  steadily  set  his  face  against  it;  but 
Reynolds  is  reported  to  have  given  his  man  £100  a 
year  for  the  door.  Here,  from  another  place,  is  a 
description  of  one  of  those  popular  auctions,  at 
which,  in  the  Marriage  A-la-Mode,  my  Lady 
Squanderfield  purchases  the  bric-a-brac  of  Sir 
Timothy  Babyhouse.  The  scene  is  probably  Cock's 
in  the  Piazza  at  Covent  Garden: — "Nothing  is  so 
diverting  as  this  kind  of  sale — the  number  of  those 
assembled,  the  diverse  passions  which  animate  them, 
the  pictures,  the  auctioneer  himself,  his  very  rostrum, 
all  contribute  to  the  variety  of  the  spectacle.    There 


M.  ROUQUET  ON  THE  ARTS        63 

you  see  the  faithless  broker  purchasing  in  secret  what 
he  openly  depreciates;  or — to  spread  a  dangerous 
snare — pretending  to  secure  with  avidity  a  picture 
which  already  belongs  to  him.  There,  some  are 
tempted  to  buy;  and  some  repent  of  having  bought. 
There,  out  of  pique  and  bravado,  another  shall  pay 
fifty  louis  for  an  article  which  he  would  not  have 
thought  worth  five  and  twenty,  had  he  not  been 
ashamed  to  draw  back  when  the  eyes  of  a  crowded 
company  were  upon  him.  There,  you  may  see  a 
woman  of  condition  turn  pale  at  the  mere  thought 
of  losing  a  paltry  pagoda  which  she  does  not  want, 
and,  in  any  other  circumstances,  would  never  have 
desired." 

A  closing  word  as  to  M.  Rouquet  himself.  The 
jfrtat  des  Arts  was  duly  noticed  by  the  critics — con- 
temptuously by  the  Monthly  Review,  and  sympathetic- 
ally by  the  Gentleman' s  and  the  Scots  Magazine.  In 
1755,  the  year  to  which  it  belongs,  its  author  put 
forth  another  work — V Art  Nouveau  de  la  Peinture 
en  Fromage  ou  en  Ramequin  [toasted  cheese],  invente 
pour  suivre  le  louable  projet  de  trouver  graduellement 
des  f aeons  de  peindre  inferieures  a  celles  qui  existent. 
This,  as  its  title  imports,  is  a  skit,  levelled  at  the 
recent  His  wire  et  Secret  de  la  Peinture  en  Cire  of 
Diderot,  who  nevertheless  refers  to  Rouquet  under 
Email,  in  the  Dictionnaire  Ency elope dique,  as  "un 
homme   habile"      He    seems,    however    (like    "la 


64  DE  LIBRIS 

peinture  a  I'huile)",  to  have  been  somewhat 
"difficile"-,  and  as  we  have  said,  his  discoveries 
(for  he  had  that  useful  element  in  enamel-work, 
considerable  chemical  knowledge),  like  Zincke's, 
perished  with  him.  Several  of  his  portraits,  notably 
those  of  Cochin  and  Marigny,  were  exhibited  at  the 
Paris  Salons.  Whether  he  was  overparted,  or  over- 
worked, in  the  Pompadour  atmosphere;  or  whether 
he  succumbed  to  the  "continual  headache"  of  which 
he  speaks  in  his  letter  to  Hogarth,  his  health  gradually 
declined.  In  the  last  year  of  his  life,  his  reason  gave 
way;  and  when  he  died  in  1759,  it  was  as  an  inmate 
of  Charenton. 


THE  FRIEND  OF  HUMANITY  AND 
THE  RHYMER 


H 


THE  FRIEND  OF  HUMANITY  AND  THE 
RHYMER 

"Emam  tua  carmina  sanus?" — Martial 

F.  OF  H.  I  want  a  verse.   It  gives  you  little  pains ; — 
You  just  sit  down,  and  draw  upon  your 

brains. 
Come,  now,  be  amiable. 

R.  To  hear  you  talk, 

You'd  make  it  easier  to  fly  than  walk. 
You  seem  to  think  that  rhyming  is  a  thing 
You    can    produce    if    you    but    touch    a 

spring; 
That   fancy,    fervour,  passion — and  what 

not, 
Are  just  a  case  of  "penny  in  the  slot." 
You  should  reflect  that  no  evasive  bird 
Is  half  so  shy  as  is  your  fittest  word ; 
And  even  similes,  however  wrought, 
Like  hares,  before  you  cook  them,  must  be 

caught ; — 
Impromptus,  too,  require  elaboration, 
67 


68  DE  LIBRIS 

And   (unlike  eggs)  grow  fresh  by  incuba- 
tion; 
Then, — as  to  epigrams  .  .  . 

F.  of  H.  Nay,  nay,  I've  done. 

I  did  but  make  petition.     You  make  fun. 

R.  Stay.      I    am    grave.      Forgive    me    if    I 

ramble : 
But,  then,  a  negative  needs  some  preamble 
To  break  the  blow.     I  feel  with  you,  in 

truth, 
These  complex  miseries  of  Age  and  Youth; 
I  feel  with  you — and  none  can  feel  it  more 
Than    I — this    burning    Problem    of    the 

Poor; 
The  Want  that  grinds,  the  Mystery  of  Pain, 
The    Hearts    that    sink,    and    never    rise 

again; — 
How  shall  I  set  this  to  some  careless  screed, 
Or  jigging  stave,  when  Help  is  what  you 

need, 
Help,  Help, — more  Help? 

F.  OF  H.  I  fancied  that  with  ease 

You'd  scribble  off  some  verses  that  might 

please, 
And  so  give  help  to  us. 

R.  Why  then — take  these  ! 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT 


«9 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT 

One  of  the  things  that  perplexes  the  dreamer — for 
in  spite  of  the  realists,  there  are  dreamers  still — is  the 
almost  complete  extinction  of  the  early  editions  of 
certain  popular  works.  The  pompous,  respectable, 
full-wigged  folios,  with  their  long  lists  of  subscrib- 
ers, and  their  magniloquent  dedications,  find  their 
permanent  abiding-places  in  noblemen's  collections, 
where,  unless — with  the  Chrysostom  in  Pope's  verses — 
they  are  used  for  the  smoothing  of  bands  or  the  press- 
ing of  flowers,  no  one  ever  disturbs  their  drowsy 
diuturnity.  Their  bulk  makes  them  sacred:  like  the 
regimental  big  drum,  they  are  too  large  to  be  mis- 
laid. But  where  are  all  the  first  copies  of  that  little 
octavo  of  246  pages,  price  eighteenpence,  "Printed 
by  T.  Maxey  for  Rich.  Marriot,  in  S.  Dunstans 
Church-yard,  Fleetstreet"  in  1653,  which  constitutes 
the  editio  princeps  of  Walton's  Angler?  Probably 
they  were  worn  out  in  the  pockets  of  Honest  Izaak's 
"brothers  of  the  Angle,"  or  left  to  bake  and  cockle 
in  the  sunny  corners  of  wasp-haunted  alehouse  windows, 

71 


72  DE  LIBRIS 

or  dropped  in  the  deep  grass  by  some  casual  owner, 
more  careful  for  flies  and  caddis-worms,  or  possibly 
for  the  contents  of  a  leathern  bottle,  than  all  the 
"choicely-good"  madrigals  of  Maudlin  the  milkmaid. 
In  any  case,  there  are  very  few  of  the  little  tomes, 
with  their  quaint  "coppers"  of  fishes,  in  existence 
now,  nor  is  it  silver  that  pays  for  them.  And  that 
other  eighteenpenny  book,  put  forth  by  "Nath. 
Ponder  at  the  Peacock  in  the  Poultrey  near  Cornhil " 
five  and  twenty  years  later, — The  Pilgrim* s  Progress 
from  This  World,  to  That  which  is  to  come, — why  is 
it  that  there  are  only  five  known  copies,  none  quite 
perfect,  now  extant,  of  which  the  best  sold  not  long 
since  for  more  than  £1400?  Of  these  five,  the  first 
that  came  to  light  had  been  preserved  owing  to  its 
having  taken  sanctuary,  almost  upon  publication,  in 
a  great  library,  where  it  was  forgotten.  But  the 
others  that  passed  over  Mr.  Ponder's  counter  in  the 
Poultry, — were  they  all  lost,  thumbed  and  dog's-eared 
out  of  being?  They  are  gone, — that  is  all  you  can 
say;  and  gone  apparently  beyond  reach  of  recovery. 
These  remarks, — which  scarcely  rise  to  the  dignity 
of  reflections — have  been  suggested  by  the  diffi- 
culty which  the  writer  has  experienced  in  obtaining 
particulars  as  to  the  earliest  form  of  The  Parentis 
Assistant.  As  a  matter  of  course,  children's  books 
are  more  liable  to  disappear  than  any  others.  They 
are  sooner  torn,  soiled,  dismembered,  disintegrated — 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT  73 

sooner  find  their  way  to  that  mysterious  unlocated 
limbo  of  lost  things,  which  engulfs  so  much.  Yet 
one  scarcely  expected  that  even  the  British  Museum 
would  not  have  possessed  a  copy  of  the  first  issue  of 
Miss  Edgeworth's  book.  Such,  however,  seems  to 
be  the  case.  According  to  the  catalogue,  there  is 
nothing  earlier  at  Bloomsbury  than  a  portion  of  the 
second  edition;  and  from  the  inexplicit  and  conjectural 
manner  in  which  most  of  the  author's  biographers 
speak  of  the  work,  it  can  scarcely — outside  private 
collections — be  very  easily  accessible.  Fortunately 
the  old  Monthly  Review  for  September,  1796,  with 
most  exemplary  forethought  for  posterity,  gives,  as  a 
heading  to  its  notice,  a  precise  and  very  categorical 
account  of  the  first  impression.  The  Parent's  Assist- 
ant; or,  Stories  for  Children  was,  it  appears,  published 
in  two  parts,  making  three  small  duodecimo  volumes. 
The  price,  bound,  was  six  shillings.  There  was  no 
author's  name;  but  it  was  said  to  be  "by  E.  M."  (i.e. 
Edgeworth,  Maria) ,  and  the  publisher  was  Cowper's 
Dissenter  publisher,  Joseph  Johnson  of  No.  72,  St. 
Paul's  Churchyard.  Part  I.  contained  "The  Little 
Dog  Trusty;  or,  The  Liar  and  the  Boy  of  Truth"; 
"The  Orange  Man;  or,  the  Honest  Boy  and  the 
Thief";  "Lazy  Lawrence";  "Tarleton";  and  "The 
False  Key";  Part  II.,  "The  Purple  Jar,"  "The 
Bracelets,"  "Mademoiselle  Panache,"  "The  Birthday 
Present,"  "Old  Poz,"  and  "The  Mimic."     In  the 


74  DE  LIBRIS 

same  year,  1796,  a  second  edition  apeared,  appar- 
ently with  some  supplementary  stories,  e.g. :  "Barring 
Out,"  and  in  1800  came  a  third  edition  in  six  volumes. 
In  this  the  text  was  increased  by  "Simple  Susan," 
"The  Little  Merchants,"  "The  Basket  Woman," 
"The  White  Pigeon,"  "The  Orphans,"  "Waste 
Not,  Want  Not,"  "Forgive  and  Forget,"  and 
"Eton  Montem."  One  story,  "The  Purple  Jar" 
at  the  beginning  of  Part  II.  of  the  first  edition, 
was  withdrawn,  and  afterwards  included  in  another 
series,  while  the  stories  entitled  respectively  "Little 
Dog  Trusty"  and  "The  Orange  Man"  have  dis- 
appeared from  the  collection,  probably  for  the 
reason  given  in  one  of  the  first  prefaces,  namely,  that 
they  "were  written  for  a  much  earlier  age  than  any 
of  the  others,  and  with  such  a  perfect  simplicity  of 
expression  as,  to  many,  may  appear  insipid  and 
ridiculous."  The  six  volumes  of  the  third  edition 
came  out  successively  on  the  first  day  of  the  first  six 
months  of  1800.  The  Monthly  Reviewer  of  the 
first  edition,  it  may  be  added,  was  highly  laudatory ; 
and  his  commendations  show  that  the  early  critics  of 
the  author  were  fully  alive  to  her  distinctive  qualities. 
"The  moral  and  prudential  lessons  of  these  volumes," 
says  the  writer,  "are  judiciously  chosen;  and  the 
stories  are  invented  with  great  ingenuity,  and  are 
happily  contrived  to  excite  curiosity  and  awaken 
feeling   without   the    aid   of   improbable   fiction   or 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT  75 

extravagant  adventure.  The  language  is  varied  in 
its  degree  of  simplicity,  to  suit  the  pieces  to  different 
ages,  but  is  throughout  neat  and  correct;  and,  with- 
out the  least  approach  towards  vulgarity  or  meanness, 
it  is  adapted  with  peculiar  felicity  to  the  understand- 
ings of  children.  The  author's  taste,  in  this  class  of 
writing,  appears  to  have  been  formed  on  the  best 
models;  and  the  work  will  not  discredit  a  place  on 
the  same  shelf  with  Berquin's  Child* s  Friend,  Mrs. 
Barbauld's  Lessons  for  Children,  and  Dr.  Aikin's 
Evenings  at  Home.  The  story  of  'Lazy  Lawrence'  " 
— the  notice  goes  on — "is  one  of  the  best  lectures  on 
industry  which  we  have  ever  read."  The  Critical  Re- 
view,  which  also  gave  a  short  account  of  the  Parent's 
Assistant  in  its  number  for  January  1797,  does  not 
rehearse  the  contents.  But  it  confirms  the  title,  etc., 
adding  that  the  price,  in  boards,  was  4s.  6d. ;  and  its 
praise,  though  brief,  is  very  much  to  the  point. 
"The  present  production  is  particularly  sensible  and 
judicious;  the  stories  are  well  written,  simple,  and 
affecting;  calculated,  not  only  for  moral  improve- 
ment, but  to  exercise  the  best  affections  of  the  human 
heart.,, 

With  one  of  the  books  mentioned  by  the  Monthly 
Review — Evenings  at  Home — Miss  Edgeworth  was 
fully  prepared,  at  all  events  as  regards  format,  to 
associate  herself.  "The  stories,"  she  says  in  a  letter 
to  her  cousin,  Miss  Sophy  Ruxton,  "are  printed  and 


fj6  DE  LIBRIS 

bound  the  same  size  as  Evenings  at  Home,  and  I  am 
afraid  you  will  dislike  the  title."  Her  father  had  sent 
the  book  to  press  as  the  Parent's  Friend,  a  name  no 
doubt  suggested  by  the  Ami  des  Enfants  of  Berquin; 
but  "Mr.  Johnson  [the  publisher],"  continues  Miss 
Edgeworth,  "has  degraded  it  into  The  Parent's 
Assistant,  which  I  dislike  particularly,  from  association 
with  an  old  book  of  arithmetic  called  The  Tutor's 
Assistant."  The  ground  of  objection  is  not  very 
formidable ;  but  the  Parent's  Assistant  is  certainly  an 
infelicitous  name.  From  some  other  of  the  author's 
letters  we  are  able  to  trace  the  gradual  growth  of  the 
work.  Mr.  Edgeworth,  her  father,  an  utilitarian  of 
much  restless  energy,  and  many  projects,  was  greatly 
interested  in  education, — or,as  he  would  have  termed 
it,  practical  education, — and  long  before  this  date, 
as  early,  indeed,  as  May  1780,  he  had  desired  his 
daughter,  while  she  was  still  a  girl  at  a  London  school, 
to  write  him  a  tale  about  the  length  of  a  Spectator, 
upon  the  topic  of  "Generosity,"  to  be  taken  from 
history  or  romance.  This  was  her  first  essay  in 
fiction ;  and  it  was  pronounced  by  the  judge  to  whom 
it  was  submitted, — in  competition  with  a  rival  pro- 
duction by  a  young  gentleman  from  Oxford, — to 
be  an  excellent  story,  and  extremely  well-written, 
although  with  this  commendation  was  coupled  the 
somewhat  damaging  inquiry, — "But  where's  the 
Generosity?"      The    question    cannot   be    answered 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT  77 

now,  as  the  manuscript  has  not  been  preserved, 
though  the  inconvenient  query,  we  are  told,  became 
a  kind  of  personal  proverb  with  the  young  author, 
who  was  wont  to  add  that  this  first  effort  contained  "a 
sentence  of  inextricable  confusion  between  a  saddle,  a 
man,  and  his  horse.1'  This  was  a  defect  from  which 
she  must  have  speedily  freed  herself,  since  her  style, 
as  her  first  reviewer  allowed,  is  conspicuously  direct 
and  clear.  Accuracy  in  speaking  and  writing  had, 
indeed,  been  early  impressed  upon  her.  Her  father's 
doctrinaire  ally  and  co-disciplinarian,  Mr.  Thomas 
Day,  later  the  author  of  Sandford  and  Merton,  and 
apparently  the  first  person  of  whom  it  is  affirmed  that 
"he  talked  like  a  book,"  had  been  indefatigable  in 
bringing  this  home  to  his  young  friend,  when  she 
visited  him  in  her  London  school-days.  Not  content 
alone  to  dose  her  copiously  with  Bishop  Berkeley's 
Tar  Water — the  chosen  beverage  of  Young  and 
Richardson — he  was  unwearied  in  ministering  to  her 
understanding.  "His  severe  reasoning  and  uncom- 
promising love  of  truth  awakened  her  powers,  and 
the  questions  he  put  to  her,  the  necessity  of  perfect 
accuracy  in  her  answers,  suited  the  bent  of  her  mind. 
Though  such  strictness  was  not  always  agreeable,  she 
even  then  perceived  its  advantages,  and  in  after  life 
was  deeply  grateful  to  Mr.  Day."1 

The  training  she  underwent  from  the  inexorable 

1  Maria   Edgeworth,   by   Helen  Zimmern,    1888,   p.    13. 


78  DE  LIBRIS 

Mr.  Day  was  continued  by  her  father  when  she 
quitted  school,  and  moved  with  her  family  to  the 
parental  seat  at  Edge  worth  stown  in  Ireland.  Mr. 
Edgeworth,  whose  principles  were  as  rigorous  as 
those  of  his  friend,  devoted  himself  early  to  initiating 
her  into  business  habits.  He  taught  her  to  copy 
letters,  to  keep  accounts,  to  receive  rents,  and,  in  short, 
to  act  as  his  agent  and  factotum.  She  frequently 
accompanied  him  in  the  many  disputes  and  diffi- 
culties which  arose  with  his  Irish  tenantry;  and 
apart  from  the  insight  which  this  must  have  afforded 
her  into  the  character  and  idiosyncrasies  of  the 
people,  she  no  doubt  very  early  acquired  that  exact 
knowledge  of  leases  and  legacies  and  dishonest 
factors  which  is  a  noticeable  feature  even  of  her 
children's  books.1  It  is  some  time,  however,  before 
we  hear  of  any  successor  to  "Generosity";  but, 
in  1782,  her  father,  with  a  view  to  provide  her 
with  an  occupation  for  her  leisure,  proposed  to  her 
to  prepare  a  translation  of  the  Adele  et  Theodore  of 
Madame  de  Genlis,  those  letters  upon  education 
by  which  that  gentle  and  multifarious  moralist 
acquired — to  use  her  own  words — at  once  "the 
suffrages  of  the  public,  and  the  irreconcilable  hatred 
of  all  the  so-called  philosophers  and  their  partisans." 
At  first  there  had  been  no  definite  thought  of 
print  in  Mr.  Edgeworth's  mind.     But  as  the  work 

1  Cf.   "Attorney  Case"   in  the  story  of  "Simple  Susan." 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT  79 

progressed,  the  idea  gathered  strength;  and  he 
began  to  prepare  his  daughter's  manuscript  for  the 
press.  Then,  unhappily,  when  the  first  volume  was 
finished,  HolcrofVs  complete  translation  appeared, 
and  made  the  labour  needless.  Yet  it  was  not 
without  profit.  It  had  been  excellent  practice  in 
aiding  Miss  Edgeworth's  faculty  of  expression, 
and  increasing  her  vocabulary — to  say  nothing  of 
the  influence  which  the  portraiture  of  individuals 
and  the  satire  of  reigning  follies  which  are  the 
secondary  characteristics  of  Madame  de  Genlis's  most 
well-known  work,  may  have  had  on  her  own  subse- 
quent efforts  as  a  novelist.  Meanwhile  her  mentor, 
Mr.  Day,  was  delighted  at  the  interruption  of  her 
task.  He  possessed,  to  the  full,  that  rooted  antipathy 
to  feminine  authorship  of  which  we  find  so  many 
traces  in  Miss  Burney's  novels  and  elsewhere; 
and  he  wrote  to  congratulate  Mr.  Edgeworth  on 
having  escaped  the  disgrace  of  having  a  translating 
daughter.  At  this  time,  as  already  stated,  he  him- 
self had  not  become  the  author  of  Sand  ford  and 
Merton,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  owed  its  inception 
to  the  Edgeworths,  being  at  first  simply  intended 
as  a  short  story  to  be  inserted  in  the  Harry  and 
Lucy  Mr.  Edgeworth  wrote  in  conjunction  with 
his  second  wife,  Honora  Sneyd.  As  regards  the 
question  of  publication,  both  Maria  and  her  father, 
although  sensible  of  Mr.  Day's  prejudices,  appear 


80  DE  LIBRIS 

to  have  deferred  to  his  arguments.  Nor  were  these 
even  lost  to  the  public,  for  we  are  informed  that, 
in  Miss  Edgeworth's  first  book,  ten  years  later, 
the  Letters  to  Literary  Ladies,  she  employed  and 
embodied  much  that  he  had  advanced.  But  for  the 
present,  she  continued  to  write — though  solely  for 
her  private  amusement — essays,  little  stories,  and 
dramatic  sketches.  One  'of  these  last  must  have 
been  "Old  Poz,"  a  pleasant  study  of  a  country 
justice  and  a  gazza  ladra,  which  appeared  in  Parf  II. 
of  the  first  issue  of  the  Parent's  Assistant,  and  which, 
we  are  told,  was  acted  by  the  Edgeworth  children  in 
a  little  theatre  erected  in  the  dining-room  for  the 
purpose.  According  to  her  sisters,  it  was  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  practice  first  to  write  her  stories  on  a  slate,  and 
then  to  read  them  out.  If  they  were  approved,  she 
transcribed  them  fairly.  "Her  writing  for  children" 
— says  one  of  her  biographers — "was  a  natural  out- 
growth of  a  practical  study  of  their  wants  and 
fancies;  and  her  constant  care  of  the  younger 
children  gave  her  exactly  the  opportunity  required 
to  observe  the  development  of  mind  incident  to  the 
age  and  capacity  of  several  little  brothers  and  sisters." 
According  to  her  own  account,  her  first  critic  was 
her  father.  "Whenever  I  thought  of  writing  any- 
thing, I  always  told  him  [my  father]  my  first  rough 
plans;  and  always,  with  the  instinct  of  a  good  critic, 
he  used  to  fix  immediately  upon  that  which  would 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT  81 

best  answer  the  purpose. — 'Sketch  that,  and  shew  it 
to  me* — These  words,  from  the  experience  of  his 
sagacity,  never  failed  to  inspire  me  with  hope  of 
success.  It  was  then  sketched.  Sometimes,  when 
I  was  fond  of  a  particular  part,  I  used  to  dilate  on 
it  in  the  sketch;  but  to  this  he  always  objected — 'I 
don't  want  any  of  your  painting — none  of  your 
drapery! — I  can  imagine  all  that — let  me  see  the 
bare  skeleton.'  " 

Of  the  first  issue  of  the  Parent's  Assistant  in  1796, 
a  sufficient  account  has  already  been  given.  In  the 
"Preface"  the  practical  intention  of  several  of  the 
stories  is  explicitly  set  forth.  "Lazy  Lawrence,"  we 
are  told,  illustrates  the  advantages  of  industry,  and 
demonstrates  that  people  feel  cheerful  and  happy 
whilst  they  are  employed;  while  "Tarleton"  repre- 
sents "the  danger  and  the  folly  of  that  weakness  of 
mind,  and  that  easiness  to  be  led,  which  too  often 
pass  for  good  nature";  "The  False  Key"  points 
out  some  of  the  evils  to  which  a  well-educated 
boy,  on  first  going  to  service,  is  exposed  from  the 
profligacy  of  his  fellow-servants;  "The  Mimic," 
me  drawback  of  vulgar  acquaintances;  "Barring 
Out,"  the  errors  to  which  a  high  spirit  and  the  love 
of  party  are  apt  to  lead,  and  so  forth.  In  the  final 
paragraph  stress  is  laid  upon  what  every  fresh  reader 
must  at  once  recognise  as  the  supreme  merit  of  the 
stories,  namely,  their  dramatic  faculty,  or   (in  the 


82  DE  LIBRIS 

actual  words  of  the  "Preface"),  their  art  of  "keeping 
alive  hope  and  fear  and  curiosity,  by  some  degree 
of  intricacy."1  The  plausibility  of  invention,  the 
amount  of  ingenious  contrivance  and  of  clever 
expedient  in  these  professedly  nursery  stories,  is 
indeed  extraordinary;  and  nothing  can  exceed  the 
dexterity  with  which — to  use  Dr.  Johnson's  words 
concerning  She  Stoops  to  Conquer — "the  incidents 
are  so  prepared  as  not  to  seem  improbable."  There 
is  no  better  example  of  this  than  the  admirable 
tale  of  "The  Mimic,"  in  which  the  most  unlooked- 
for  occurrences  succeed  each  other  in  the  most 
natural  way,  while  the  disappearance  at  the  end  of 
the  little  sweep,  who  has  levanted  up  the  chimney 
in  Frederick's  new  blue  coat  and  buff  waistcoat,  is 
a  master-stroke.  Everybody  has  forgotten  every- 
thing about  him  until  the  precise  moment  when  he 
is  needed  to  supply  the  fitting  surprise  of  the  finish, 
— a  surprise  which  is  only  to  be  compared  to  that 
other  revelation  in  The  Rose  and  the  Ring  of 
Thackeray,  where  the  long-lost  and  obnoxious  porter 
at  Valoroso's  palace,  having  been  turned  by  the  Fairy 
Blackstick  into  a  door  knocker  for  his  insolence, 
is  restored  to  the  sorrowing  Servants'  Hall  exactly 
when  his  services  are  again  required  in  the  capacity 
of  Mrs.  Gruffanuff's  husband.     But  in  Miss  Edge- 


JThe  "Preface  to  Parents" — Miss  Emily  Lawless  suggests  to  me — was 
probably  by  Mr.  Edgeworth. 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT  83 

worth's  little  fable  there  is  no  fairy  agency.  "Fairies 
were  not  much  in  her  line,"  says  Lady  Ritchie, 
Thackeray's  daughter,  ubut  philanthropic  manu- 
facturers, liberal  noblemen,  and  benevolent  ladies 
in  travelling  carriages,  do  as  well  and  appear  in 
the  nick  of  time  to  distribute  rewards  or  to  point 
a  moral." 

Although,  by  their  sub-title,  these  stories  are 
avowedly  composed  for  children,  they  are  almost 
as  attractive  to  grown-up  readers.  This  is  partly 
owing  to  their  narrative  skill,  partly  also  to  the 
clear  characterisation,  which  already  betrays  the 
coming  author  of  Castle  Rackrent  and  Belinda  and 
Patronage — the  last,  under  its  first  name  of  The  Free- 
man Family,  being  already  partly  written,  although 
many  years  were  still  to  pass  before  it  saw  the  light 
in  1 8 14.  Readers,  wise  after  the  event,  might  fairly 
claim  to  have  foreseen  from  some  of  the  personages 
in  the  Parent's  Assistant  that  the  author,  however 
sedulous  to  describe  "such  situations  only  .  .  as 
children  can  easily  imagine,"  was  not  able  entirely  to 
resist  tempting  specimens  of  human  nature  like  the 
bibulous  Mr.  Corkscrew,  the  burglar  butler  in  "The 
False  Key,"  or  Mrs.  Pomfret,  the  housekeeper  of  the 
same  story,  whose  prejudices  against  the  Villaintropic 
Society,  and  its  unholy  dealing  with  the  "drugs  and 
refuges"  of  humanity,  are  quite  in  the  style  of  the 
Mrs.  Slipslop  of  a  great  artist  whose  works  one  would 


84  DE  LIBRIS 

scarcely  have  expected  to  encounter  among  the 
paper-backed  and  grey-boarded  volumes  which  lined 
the  shelves  at  Edgeworthstown.  Mrs.  Theresa 
Tattle,  again,  in  "The  Mimic,"  is  a  type  which 
requires  but  little  to  fit  it  for  a  subordinate  part  in 
a  novel,  as  is  also  Lady  Diana  Sweepstakes  in  "Waste 
not,  Want  not."  In  more  than  one  case,  we  seem 
to  detect  an  actual  portrait.  Mr.  Somerville  of 
Somerville  ("The  White  Pigeon"),  to  whom  that 
"little  town"  belonged, — who  had  done  so  much 
"to  inspire  his  tenantry  with  a  taste  for  order  and 
domestic  happiness,  and  took  every  means  in  his 
power  to  encourage  industrious,  well-behaved  people 
to  settle  in  his  neighbourhood," — can  certainly  be 
none  other  than  the  father  of  the  writer  of  the 
Parent's  Assistant,  the  busy  and  beneficent,  but 
surely  eccentric,  Mr.  Edgeworth  of  Edgeworthstown. 
When,  in  1849,  tne  &rst  tw0  volumes  of 
Macaulay's  History  were  issued,  Miss  Edgeworth, 
then  in  her  eighty-third  winter,  was  greatly  delighted 
to  find  her  name,  coupled  with  a  compliment  to  one 
of  her  characters,  enshrined  in  a  note  to  chap.  vi. 
But  her  gratification  was  qualified  by  the  fact  that 
she  could  discover  no  similar  reference  to  her  friend, 
Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  generous  "twinge  of  pain," 
to  which  she  confesses,  was  intelligible.  Scott  had 
always  admired  her  genius,  and  she  admired  his.  In 
the   "General  Preface"  to  the  Waverley  Novels, 


THE  PARENT'S  ASSISTANT  85 

twenty  years  before,  he  had  gone  so  far  as  to  say 
that,  without  hoping  to  emulate  "the  rich  humour, 
pathetic  tenderness,  and  admirable  tact"  of  Miss 
Edgeworth,  he  had  attempted  to  do  for  his  own 
country  what  she  had  done  for  hers;  and  it  is  clear, 
from  other  sources,  that  this  was  no  mere  form  of 
words.  And  he  never  wavered  in  his  admiration. 
In  his  last  years,  not  many  months  before  his  death, 
when  he  had  almost  forgotten  her  name,  he  was  still 
talking  kindly  of  her  work.  Speaking  to  Mrs.  John 
Davy  of  Miss  Austen  and  Miss  Ferrier,  he  said: 
"And  there's  that  Irish  lady,  too — but  I  forget 
everybody's  name  now"  .  .  .  "she's  very  clever, 
''lid  best  in  the  little  touches  too.  I'm  sure  in  that 
children's  story,  where  the  little  girl  parts  with  her 
lamb,  and  the  little  boy  brings  it  back  to  her  again, 
there's  nothing  for  it  but  just  to  put  down  the  book 
and  cry."1  The  reference  is  to  "Simple  Susan," 
the  longest  and  prettiest  tale  in  the  Parents 
Assistant. 

Another  anecdote  pleasantly  connects  the  same 
book  with  a  popular  work  of  a  later  writer. 
Readers  of  Cranford  will  recall  the  feud  between  the 
Johnson-loving  Miss  Jenkyns  of  that  story  and  its 
Pickwick-loving  Captain  Brown.  The  Captain — as 
is  well-known — met  his  death  by  a  railway  accident, 
just  after  he  had  been  studying  the  last  monthly 

1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Sir   Walter  Scott,    ch.   lxxxi.   ad  finem. 


86  DE  LIBRIS 

"green  covers"  of  Dickens.  Years  later,  the 
assumed  narrator  of  Cranford  visits  Miss  Jenkyns, 
then  falling  into  senility.  She  still  vaunts  The 
Rambler;  still  maunders  vaguely  of  the  "strange 
old  book,  with  the  queer  name,  poor  Captain  Brown 
was  killed  for  reading — that  book  by  Mr.  Boz,  you 
know — Old  Poz;  when  I  was  a  girl — but  that's  a 
long  time  ago — I  acted  Lucy  in  Old  Poz."  There 
can  be  no  mistake.  Lucy  is  the  justice's  daughter 
^    in  Miss  Edgeworth's  little  chamber-drama. 


A  PLEASANT  INVECTIVE  AGAINST 
PRINTING 


87 


A  PLEASANT  INVECTIVE  AGAINST 
PRINTING 


"Flee  fro  the  Prees,  and  dwelle  with  sothfastnesse." — 

Chaucer,  Balade  de  Bon  Conseil 

The  Press  is  too  much  with  us,  small  and  great : 

We  are  undone  of  chatter  and  on  dit, 

Report,  retort,  rejoinder,  repartee, 

Mole-hill  and  mare's  nest,  fiction  up-to-date, 

Babble  of  booklets,  bicker  of  debate, 

Aspect  of  A.,  and  attitude  of  B. — 

A  waste  of  words  that  drive  us  like  a  sea, 

Mere  derelict  of  Ourselves,  and  helpless  freight ! 

"O  for  a  lodge  in  some  vast  wilderness !" 
Some  region  unapproachable  of  Print, 
Where  never  cablegram  could  gain  access, 
And  telephones  were  not,  nor  any  hint 
Of  tidings  new  or  old,  but  Man  might  pipe 
His  soul  to  Nature, — careless  of  the  Type ! 


89 


TWO  MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS 


5  4/ - 


GROUP  OF  CHILDREN,  FOR  "THE   LIBRARY." 
(From  the  original  pen-drawingj 


TWO  MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS 

I.  Kate  Greenaway 

In  the  world  of  pictorial  recollection  there  are  many 
territories,  the  natives  of  which  you  may  recognise 
by  their  characteristics  as  surely  as  Ophelia  recognises 
her  true-love  by  his  cockle-hat  and  sandal  shoon. 
There  is  the  land  of  grave  gestures  and  courteous 
inclinations,  of  dignified  leave-takings  and  decorous 
greetings;  where  the  ladies  (like  Richardson's 
Pamela)  don  the  most  charming  round-eared  caps 
and  frilled  negliges;  where  the  gentlemen  sport 
ruffles  and  bag-wigs  and  spotless  silk  stockings,  and 
invariably  exhibit  shapely  calves  above  their  silver 
shoe-buckles;  where  you  may  come  in  St.  James's 
Park  upon  a  portly  personage  with  a  star,  taking  an 
alfresco  pinch  of  snuff  after  that  leisurely  style  in 
which  a  pinch  of  snuff  should  be  taken,  so  as  not  to 
endanger  a  lace  cravat  or  a  canary-coloured  vest; 
where  you  may  seat  yourself  on  a  bench  by 
Rosamond's  Pond  in  company  with  a  tremulous 
mask  who  is  evidently  expecting  the  arrival  of  a 

93 


94  DE  LIBRIS 

"pretty  fellow";  or  happen  suddenly,  in  a  secluded 
side-walk,  upon  a  damsel  in  muslin  and  a  dark  hat, 
who  is  hurriedly  scrawling  a  poulet,  not  without 
obvious  signs  of  perturbation.  But  whatever  the 
denizens  of  this  country  are  doing,  they  are  always 
elegant  and  always  graceful,  always  appropriately 
grouped  against  their  fitting  background  of  high- 
ceiled  rooms  and  striped  hangings,  or  among  the 
urns  and  fish-tanks  of  their  sombre-shrubbed  gardens. 
This  is  the  land  of  Stothard. 

In  the  adjoining  country  there  is  a  larger  sense 
of  colour — a  fuller  pulse  of  life.  This  is  the 
region  of  delightful  dogs  and  horses  and  domestic 
animals  of  all  sorts;  of  crimson-faced  hosts  and 
buxom  ale-wives;  of  the  most  winsome  and  black- 
eyed  milkmaids  and  the  most  devoted  lovers  and 
their  lasses;  of  the  most  headlong  and  horn-blowing 
huntsmen — a  land  where  Madam  Blaize  forgathers 
with  the  impeccable  worthy  who  caused  the  death 
of  the  Mad  Dog;  where  John  Gilpin  takes  the 
Babes  in  the  Wood  en  croupe  \  and  the  bewitchingest 
Queen  of  Hearts  coquets  the  Great  Panjandrum 
himself  "with  the  little  round  button  at  top" — a 
land,  in  short,  of  the  most  kindly  and  light-hearted 
fancies,  of  the  freshest  and  breeziest  and  healthiest 
types — which  is  the  land  of  Caldecott. 

Finally,  there  is  a  third  country,  a  country 
inhabited  almost   exclusively  by  the  sweetest  little 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS     95 

child-figures  that  have  ever  been  invented,  in  the 
quaintest  and  prettiest  costumes,  always  happy, 
always  gravely  playful, — and  nearly  always  playing; 
always  set  in  the  most  attractive  framework  of 
flower-knots,  or  blossoming  orchards,  or  red-roofed 
cottages  with  dormer  windows.  Everywhere  there 
are  green  fields,  and  daisies,  and  daffodils,  and  pearly 
skies  of  spring,  in  which  a  kite  is  often  flying.  No 
children  are  quite  like  the  dwellers  in  this  land; 
they  are  so  gentle,  so  unaffected  in  their  affectation, 
so  easily  pleased,  so  trustful  and  so  confiding.  And 
this  is  GREENAWAY-land. 

It  is  sixty  years  since  Thomas  Stothard  died,  and 
only  fifteen  since  Randolph  Caldecott  closed  his  too 
brief  career.1  And  now  Kate  Greenaway,  who  loved 
the  art  of  both,  and  in  her  own  gentle  way  possessed 
something  of  the  qualities  of  each,  has  herself  passed 
away.  It  will  rest  with  other  pens  to  record  her 
personal  characteristics,  and  to  relate  the  story  of 
her  life.  I  who  write  this  was  privileged  to  know 
her  a  little,  and  to  receive  from  her  frequent  presents 
of  her  books;  but  I  should  shrink  from  anything 
approaching  a  description  of  the  quiet,  unpretentious, 
almost  homely  little  lady,  whom  it  was  always  a 
pleasure  to  meet  and  to  talk  with.  If  I  here  permit 
myself  to  recall  one  or  two  incidents  of  our  inter- 
course, it  is  solely  because  they  bear  either  upon 

,  '  This  was  written  in  1902. 


96  DE  LIBRIS 

her  amiable  dispositon  or  her  art.  I  remember  that 
once,  during  a  country  walk  in  Sussex,  she  gave  me 
a  long  account  of  her  childhood,  which  I  wish  I 
could  repeat  in  detail.  But  I  know  that  she  told  me 
that  she  had  been  brought  up  in  just  such  a  neigh- 
bourhood of  thatched  roofs  and  "grey  old  gardens" 
as  she  depicts  in  her  drawings;  and  that  in  some  of 
the  houses,  it  was  her  particular  and  unfailing  delight 
to  turn  over  ancient  chests  and  wardrobes  filled  with 
the  flowered  frocks  and  capes  of  the  Jane  Austen 
period.  As  is  well  known,  she  corresponded  fre- 
quently with  Ruskin,  and  possessed  numbers  of  his 
letters.  In  his  latter  years,  it  had  been  her  practice 
to  write  to  him  periodically — I  believe  she  said  once 
a  week.  He  had  long  ceased,  probably  from  ill- 
health,  to  answer  her  letters;  but  she  continued  to 
write  punctually  lest  he  should  miss  the  little  budget 
of  chit-chat  to  which  he  had  grown  accustomed.  At 
another  time — in  a  pleasant  country-house  which 
contained  many  examples  of  her  art — and  where  she 
was  putting  the  last  touches  to  a  delicately  tinted 
child-angel  in  the  margin  of  a  Bible — I  ventured  to 
say,  "Why  do  your  children  always  .  .  .?"  But 
it  is  needless  to  complete  the  query;  the  answer 
alone  is  important.  She  looked  at  me  reflectively, 
and  said,  after  a  pause,  "Because  I  see  it  so." 

Answers  not  dissimilar  have  been  given  before 
by  other  artists  in  like  case.     But  it  was  this  rigid 


PENCIL-SKETCHES   BY  MISS  GREEN  AWAY    (NO.    i) 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS      97 

fidelity  to  her  individual  vision  and  personal  con- 
viction which  constituted  her  strength.  There  are 
always  stupid,  well-meaning  busybodies  in  the  world, 
who  go  about  making  question  of  the  sonneteer  why 
he  does  not  attempt  something  epic  and  homicidal, 
or  worrying  the  carver  of  cherry-stones  to  try  his 
hand  at  a  Colossus;  but  though  they  disturb  and 
discompose,  they  luckily  do  no  material  harm.  They 
did  no  material  harm  to  Kate  Greenaway.  She 
yielded,  no  doubt,  to  pressure  put  upon  her  to  try 
figures  on  a  larger  scale;  to  illustrate  books,  which 
was  not  her  strong  point,  as  it  only  put  fetters  upon 
her  fancy;  but,  in  the  main,  she  courageously  pre- 
served the  even  tenor  of  her  way,  which  was  to 
people  the  artistic  demesne  she  administered  with 
the  tiny  figures  which  no  one  else  could  make  more 
captivating,  or  clothe  more  adroitly.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  collector  will  set  much  store 
by  Bret  Harte's  Queen  of  the  Pirate  Isle  or  the  Pied 
Piper  of  Hamelin,  suitable  at  first  sight  as  is  the 
latter,  with  its  child-element,  to  her  inventive 
idiosyncrasy.  But  he  will  revel  in  the  dainty  scenes 
of  "Almanacks"  (1883  to  1895,  anc*  1897)  ;  in  the 
charming  Birthday  Book  of  1880;  in  Mother  Goose, 
A  Day  in  a  Child's  Life,  Little  Ann,  Marigold  Garden 
and  the  rest,  of  which  the  grace  is  perennial,  though 
the  popularity  for  the  moment  may  have  waned. 


98  DE  LIBRIS 

I  have  an  idea  that  Mother  Goose;  or,  the  Old 
Nursery  Rhymes,  1881,  was  one  of  Miss  Greenaway's 
favourites,  although  it  may  have  been  displaced  in 
her  own  mind  by  subsequent  successes.  Nothing 
can  certainly  be  more  deftly-tinted  than  the  design  of 
the  "old  woman  who  lived  under  a  Hill,"  and  peeled 
apples;  nothing  more  seductive,  in  infantile  attitude, 
than  the  little  boy  and  girl,  who,  with  their  arms 
around  each  other,  stand  watching  the  black-cat  in 
the  plum-tree.  Then  there  is  Daffy-down-dilly,  who 
has  come  up  to  town,  with  ua  yellow  petticoat  and  a 
green  gown,"  in  which  attire,  aided  by  a  straw  hat 
tied  under  her  chin,  she  manages  to  look  exceedingly 
attractive,  as  she  passes  in  front  of  the  white  house 
with  the  pink  roof  and  the  red  shutters  and  the  green 
palings.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  pictures  in  this 
gallery  is  the  dear  little  "Ten-o'-clock  Scholar"  in 
his  worked  smock,  as,  trailing  his  blue-and-white 
school-bag  behind  him,  he  creeps  unwillingly  to  his 
lessons  at  the  most  picturesque  timbered  cottage  you 
can  imagine.  Another  absolutely  delightful  portrait 
is  that  of  "Little  Tom  Tucker,"  in  sky-blue  suit  and 
frilled  collar,  singing,  with  his  hands  behind  him,  as 
if  he  never  could  grow  old.  And  there  is  not  one  of 
these  little  compositions  that  is  without  its  charm  of 
colour  and  accessory — blue  plates  on  the  dresser  in 
the  background,  the  parterres  of  a  formal  garden 
with   old-fashioned   flowers,   quaint  dwellings  with 


U   6  ArVY*<" 

1  ■*1ilr^ 


PENCIL-SKETCH    BY    MISS   GREENAWAY     ( NO.    2). 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS      99 

their  gates  and  grass-work,  odd  corners  of  country- 
side and  village  street,  and  all,  generally,  in  the  clear 
air  or  sunlight.  For  in  this  favoured  Greenaway- 
realm,  as  in  the  island-valley  of  Avilion,  there 

falls  not  hail,  or  rain,  or  any  snow, 
Nor  ever  wind  blows  loudly;  but  it  lies 
Deep-meadow'd,   happy,   fair   with   orchard-lawns. 

To  Mother  Goose  followed  A  Day  in  a  Child! s 
Life,  also  1881,  and  Little  Ann,  1883.  The  former 
of  these  contained  various  songs  set  to  music  by 
Mr.  Myles  B.  Foster,  the  organist  of  the  Foundling 
Hospital,  and  accompanied  by  designs  on  rather  a 
larger  scale  than  those  in  Mother  Goose.  It  also 
included  a  larger  proportion  of  the  floral  decorations 
which  were  among  the  artist's  chief  gifts.  Foxgloves 
and  buttercups,  tulips  and  roses,  are  flung  about  the 
pages  of  the  book;  and  there  are  many  pictures, 
notably  one  of  a  little  green-coated  figure  perched 
upon  a  five-barred  gate,  which  repeat  the  triumphs 
of  its  predecessor.  In  Little  Ann  and  other  Poems, 
which  is  dedicated  to  the  four  children  of  the  artist's 
friend,  the  late  Frederick  Locker  Lampson,  she 
illustrated  a  selection  from  the  verses  for  "Infant 
Minds"  of  Jane  and  Ann  Taylor,  daughters  of  that 
Isaac  Taylor  of  Ongar,  who  was  first  a  line  engraver 
and    afterwards    an    Independent    Minister.1      The 

1  Since  this  paper  was  written,  the  Original  Poems  and  Others,  of  Ann 
and  Jane  Taylor,  with  illustrations  by  F.  D.  Bedford,  and  a  most  interesting 
"Introduction"  by  Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas,  have  been  issued  by  Messrs.  Wells, 
Gardner,  Darton  and  Co. 


ioo  DE  LIBRIS 

dedication  contains  a  charming  row  of  tiny  portraits 
of  the  Locker  Lampson  family.  These  illustrations 
may  seem  to  contradict  what  has  been  said  as  to  Miss 
Greenaway's  ability  to  interpret  the  conceptions  of 
others.  But  this  particular  task  left  her  perfectly 
free  to  "go  her  own  gait,"  and  to  embroider  the  text 
which,  in  this  case,  was  little  more  than  a  pretext  for 
her  pencil. 

In  Marigold  Garden,  1885,  Miss  Greenaway 
became  her  own  poet;  and  next  to  Mother  Goose, 
this  is  probably  her  most  important  effort.  The 
flowers  are  as  entrancing  as  ever;  and  the  verse 
makes  one  wish  that  the  writer  had  written  more. 
The  "Genteel  Family"  and  "Little  Phillis"  are 
excellent  nursery  pieces;  and  there  is  almost  a  Blake- 
like note  about  "The  Sun  Door." 


They  saw  it  rise  in  the  morning, 
They  saw  it  set  at  night, 

And  they  longed  to  go  and  see  it, 
Ah !    if  they  only  might. 


The  little  soft  white  clouds  heard  them, 
And  stepped  from  out  of  the  blue; 

And  each  laid  a  little  child  softly 
Upon  its  bosom  of  dew. 

And  they  carried  them  higher  and  higher, 
And  they  nothing  knew  any  more, 

Until  they  were  standing  waiting, 
In  front  of  the  round  gold  door. 


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PENCIL-SKETCHES    BY    MISS    GREENAWAY     ( NO.    3). 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS    101 

And  they  knocked,  and  called,  and  entreated 

Whoever  should  be  within; 
But  all  to  no  purpose,  for  no  one 

Would  hearken  to  let  them  in. 

"La  rime  n'est  pas  riche,"  nor  is  the  technique 
thoroughly  assured;  but  the  thought  is  poetical. 
Here  is  another,  "In  an  Apple-Tree,"  which  reads 
like  a  child  variation  of  that  haunting  "Mimnermus 
in  Church"  of  the  author  of  Ionica : — 

In  September,  when  the  apples  are  red, 

To  Belinda  I  said, 

"Would  you  like  to  go  away 

To  Heaven,  or  stay 

Here  in  this  orchard  full  of  trees 

All  your  life?"     And  she  said,  "If  you  please 

I'll  stay  here — where  I  know, 

And  the  flowers  grow." 

In  another  vein  is  the  bright  little  "Child's 
Song" :— 

The  King  and  the  Queen  were  riding 

Upon  a  Summer's  day, 
And  a  Blackbird  flew  above  them, 

To  hear  what  they  did  say. 

The  King  said  he  liked  apples, 

The  Queen  said  she  liked  pears; 
And  what  shall  we  do  to  the  Blackbird 

Who  listens  unawares? 

But,  as  a  rule,  it  must  be  admitted  of  her  poetry 
that,  while  nearly  always  poetic  in  its  impulse,  it  is 
often  halting  and  inarticulate  in  its  expression. 


102  DE  LIBRIS 

A  few  words  may  be  added  in  regard  to  the  mere 
facts  of  Miss  Greenaway's  career.  She  was  born  at 
i  Cavendish  Street,  Hoxton,  on  the  17th  March,  1 846, 
her  father  being  Mr.  John  Greenaway,  a  draughts- 
man on  wood,  who  contributed  much  to  the  earlier 
issues  of  the  Illustrated  London  News  and  Punch. 
Annual  visits  to  a  farm-house  at  Rolleston  in 
Nottinghamshire — the  country  residence  already  re- 
ferred to — nourished  and  confirmed  her  love  of 
nature.  Very  early  she  showed  a  distinct  bias  towards 
colour  and  design  of  an  original  kind.  She  studied 
at  different  places,  and  at  South  Kensington.  Here 
both  she  and  Lady  Butler  "would  bribe  the  porter 
to  lock  them  in  when  the  day's  work  was  done,  so 
that  they  might  labour  on  for  some  while  more." 
Her  master  at  Kensington  was  Richard  Burchett, 
who,  forty  years  ago,  was  a  prominent  figure  in  the 
art-schools,  a  well  instructed  painter,  and  a  teacher 
exceptionally  equipped  with  all  the  learning  of  his 
craft.  Mr.  Burchett  thought  highly  of  Miss  Green- 
away's abilities;  and  she  worked  under  him  for  sev- 
eral years  with  exemplary  perseverance  and  industry. 
She  subsequently  studied  in  the  Slade  School  under 
Professor  Legros. 

Her  first  essays  in  the  way  of  design  took  the 
form  of  Christmas  cards,  then  beginning  their  now 
somewhat  flagging  career,  and  she  exhibited  pictures 
at  the  Dudley  Gallery  for  some  years  in  succession, 


ft    )-L 


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d* 


PENCIL-SKETCH   BY  MISS  GREENAWAY    (NO.  4), 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS    103 

beginning  with  1868.  In  1877  she  contributed 
to  the  Royal  Academy  a  water  colour  entitled 
"Musing,"  and  in  1889  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  Royal  Institute  of  Painters  in  Water  Colours. 

By  this  date,  as  will  be  gathered  from  what  has 
preceded,  Miss  Greenaway  had  made  her  mark  as  a 
producer  of  children's  books,  since,  in  addition  to 
the  volumes  already  specially  mentioned,  she  had 
issued  Under  the  Window  (her  earliest  success),  The 
Language  of  Flowers,  Kate  Greenaway' s  Painting 
Book,  The  Book  of  Games,  King  Pepito  and  other 
works.  Her  last  "Almanack,"  which  was  published 
by  Messrs.  Dent  and  Co.,  appeared  in  1897.  In 
1 89 1,  the  Fine  Arts  Society  exhibited  some  150 
of  her  original  drawings — an  exhibition  which  was 
deservedly  successful,  and  was  followed  by  others.1 
As  Slade  Professor  at  Oxford,  Ruskin,  always  her 
fervent  admirer,  gave  her  unstinted  eulogium; 
and  in  France  her  designs  aroused  the  greatest 
admiration.  The  Debats  had  a  leading  article  on 
her  death;  and  the  clever  author  of  U  Art  du 
Rire,  M.  Arsene  Alexandre,  who  had  already  written 
appreciatively  of  her  gifts  as  a  pays  agist  e,"  and  as 
a   "maitresse   en   Vart   du   sourire,    du   joli  sourire 


1  Among  other  things  these  exhibitions  revealed  the  great  superiority  of 
the  original  designs  to  the  reproductions  with  which  the  public  are  familiar 
— excellent  as  these  are  in  their  way.  Probably,  if  Miss  Greenaway's 
work  were  now  repeated  by  the  latest  form  of  three-colour  process,  she 
would  be  less  an  "inheritor" — in  this  respect — "of  unfulfilled  renown." 


io4  DE  LIBRIS 

d'enfant    ingenu   et   gaiement   candide"    devoted    a 
column  in  the  Figaro  to  her  merits. 

It  has  been  noted  that,  in  her  later  years,  Miss 
Greenaway's  popularity  was  scarcely  maintained.  It 
would  perhaps  be  more  exact  to  say  that  it  some- 
what fell  off  with  the  fickle  crowd  who  follow  a 
reigning  fashion,  and  who  unfortunately  help  to 
swell  the  units  of  a  paying  community.  To  the 
last  she  gave  of  her  best;  but  it  is  the  misfortune 
of  distinctive  and  original  work,  that,  while  the 
public  resents  versatility  in  its  favourites,  it  wearies 
unreasonably  of  what  had  pleased  it  at  first — 
especially  if  the  note  be  made  tedious  by  imitation. 
Miss  Greenaway's  old  vogue  was  in  some  measure 
revived  by  her  too-early  death  on  the  6th  November, 
1 901;  but,  in  any  case,  she  is  sure  of  attention 
from  the  connoisseur  of  the  future.  Those  who 
collect  Stothard  and  Caldecott  (and  they  are  many!) 
cannot  afford  to  neglect  either  Marigold  Garden  or 
Mother  Goose.1 


1  Since  the  above  article  appeared  in  the  Art  Journal,  from  which  it  is 
here  substantially  reproduced,  Messrs.  M.  H.  Spielmann  and  G.  S.  Layard 
have  (1905)  devoted  a  sumptuous  and  exhaustive  volume  to  Miss  Green- 
away  and  her  art.  To  this  truly  beautiful  and  sympathetic  book  I  can  but 
refer  those  of  her  admirers  who  are  not  yet  acquainted  with  it. 


A  SONG  OF  THE  GREENAWAY  CHILD 


ios 


A  SONG  OF  THE  GREENAWAY  CHILD 

As  I  went  a-walking  on  Lavender  Hill, 

O,  I  met  a  Darling  in  frock  and  frill ; 

And  she  looked  at  me  shyly,  with  eyes  of  blue, 

"Are  you  going  a-walking?    Then  take  me  too!" 

So  we  strolled  to  the  field  where  the  cowslips  grow, 
And  we  played — and  we  played,  for  an  hour  or  so; 
Then  we  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  old  park  wall, 
And  the  Darling  she  threaded  a  cowslip  ball. 

Then  we  played  again,  till  I  said — "My  Dear, 
This  pain  in  my  side,  it  has  grown  severe; 
I  ought  to  have  mentioned  I'm  past  three-score, 
And  I  fear  that  I  scarcely  can  play  any  more !" 

But  the  Darling  she  answered, — "O  no !  O  no ! 
You  must  play — you  must  play. — 1  shaVt  let  you 

go! 
— And  I  woke  with  a  start  and  a  sigh  of  despair, 
And  I  found  myself  safe  in  my  Grandfather's-chair ! 


107 


TWO  MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS 


109 


THE   BROWN    BOOK-PLATE. 
("From  the  original  design.) 


TWO  MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS 

II.  Mr.  Hugh  Thomson 

In  virtue  of  certain  gentle  and  caressing  qualities  of 
style,  Douglas  Jerrold  conferred  on  one  of  his  con- 
tributors— Miss  Eliza  Meteyard — the  pseudonym 
of  "Silverpen."  It  is  in  the  silver-pensive  key 
that  one  would  wish  to  write  of  Mr.  Hugh 
Thomson.  There  is  nothing  in  his  work  of 
elemental  strife, — of  social  problem, — of  passion 
torn  to  tatters.  He  leads  you  by  no  terribile  via, 
— over  no  "burning  Marie."  You  cannot  conceive 
him  as  the  illustrator  of  Paradise  Lost,  of  Dante's 
Inferno — even  of  Dore's  Wandering  Jew.  But 
when,  after  turning  over  some  dozens  of  his 
designs,  you  take  stock  of  your  impressions,  you 
discover  that  your  memory  is  packed  with  pleasant 
fancies.  You  have  been  among  "blown  fields"  and 
"flowerful  closes";  you  have  passed  quaint  road- 
side-inns and  picturesque  cottages;  you  are  familiar 

with  the  cheery,  ever-changing  idyll  of  the  highway 

zxz 


U2  DE  LIBRIS 

and  the  bustle  of  animal  life;  with  horses  that 
really  gallop,  and  dogs  that  really  bark;  with 
charming  male  and  female  figures  in  the  most 
attractive  old-world  attire;  with  happy  laughter 
and  artless  waggeries;  with  a  hundred  intimate 
details  of  English  domesticity  that  are  pushed  just 
far  enough  back  to  lose  the  hardness  of  their 
outline  in  a  softening  haze  of  retrospect.  There 
has  been  nothing  more  tragic  in  your  travels  than 
a  sprained  ankle  or  an  interrupted  affair  of  honour; 
nothing  more  blood-curdling  than  a  dream  of  a 
dragoon  officer  knocked  out  of  his  saddle  by  a 
brickbat.  Your  flesh  has  never  been  made  to  creep : 
but  the  cockles  of  your  heart  have  been  warmed. 
Mechanically,  you  raise  your  hand  to  lift  away 
your  optimistic  spectacles.  But  they  are  not  there. 
The  optimism  is  in  the  pictures. 

It  must  be  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  since 
Mr.  Hugh  Thomson,  arriving  from  Coleraine  in  all 
the  ardour  of  one-and-twenty,  invaded  the  strong- 
holds of  English  illustration.  He  came  at  a  fortunate 
moment.  After  a  few  hesitating  and  tentative 
attempts  upon  the  newspapers,  he  obtained  an 
introduction  to  Mr.  Comyns  Carr,  then  engaged  in 
establishing  the  English  Illustrated  Magazine  for 
Messrs.  Macmillan.  His  recommendation  was  a 
scrap-book  of  minutely  elaborated  designs  for  Vanity 
Fair,  which  he  had  done  (like  Reynolds)   "out  of 


h 

It 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS    113 

pure  idleness."  Mr.  Carr,  then,  as  always,  a  dis- 
criminating critic,  with  a  keen  eye  to  possibilities, 
was  not  slow  to  detect,  among  much  artistic  recollec- 
tion, something  more  than  uncertain  promise;  and 
although  he  had  already  Randolph  Caldecott  and 
Mr.  Harry  Furniss  on  his  staff,  he  at  once  gave 
Mr.  Thomson  a  commission  for  the  magazine.  The 
earliest  picture  from  his  hand  which  appeared  was 
a  fancy  representation  of  the  Parade  at  Bath  for  a 
paper  in  June,  1884,  by  the  late  H.  D.  Traill;  and 
he  also  illustrated  (in  part)  papers  on  Drawing  Room 
Dances,  on  Cricket  (by  Mr.  Andrew  Lang),  and  on 
Covent  Garden.  But  graphic  and  vividly  naturalistic 
as  were  his  pictures  of  modern  life,  his  native  bias 
towards  imaginary  eighteenth-century  subjects  (per- 
haps prompted  by  boyish  studies  of  Hogarth  in  the 
old  Dublin  Penny  Magazine) ,  was  already  abundantly 
manifest.  He  promptly  drifted  into  what  was 
eventually  to  become  his  first  illustrated  book,  a 
series  of  compositions  from  the  Spectator.  These 
were  published  in  1886  as  a  little  quarto,  entitled 
Days  with  Sir  Roger  de  Cover  ley. 

It  was  a  "temerarious"  task  to  attempt  to  revive 
the  types  which,  from  the  days  of  Harrison's  Essay- 
ists, had  occupied  so  many  of  the  earlier  illustrators. 
But  the  attempt  was  fully  justified  by  its  success. 
One  has  but  to  glance  at  the  head-piece  to  the  first 
paper,  where  Sir  Roger  and  "Mr.  Spectator"  have 


U4  E>E  LIBRIS 

alighted  from  the  jolting,  springless,  heavy-wheeled 
old  coach  as  the  tired  horses  toil  uphill,  to  recognise 
at  once  that  here  is  an  artist  en  pays  de  connaissance, 
who  may  fairly  be  trusted,  in  the  best  sense,  to 
"illustrate"  his  subject.  Whatever  one's  predilections 
for  previous  presentments,  it  is  impossible  to  resist 
Sir  Roger  (young,  slim,  and  handsome),  carving  the 
perverse  widow's  name  upon  a  tree-trunk;  or  Sir 
Roger  at  bowls,  or  riding  to  hounds,  or  listening — 
with  grave  courtesy — to  Will  Wimble's  long-winded 
and  circumstantial  account  of  the  taking  of  the 
historic  jack.  Nor  is  the  conception  less  happy 
of  that  amorous  fine-gentleman  ancestor  of  the 
Coverleys  who  first  made  love  by  squeezing  the 
hand;  or  of  that  other  Knight  of  the  Shire  who  so 
narrowly  escaped  being  killed  in  the  Civil  Wars 
because  he  was  sent  out  of  the  field  upon  a  private 
message,  the  day  before  Cromwell's  "crowning 
mercy," — the  battle  of  Worcester.  But  the  varied 
embodiments  of  these,  and  of  Mrs.  Betty  Arable 
("the  great  fortune"),  of  Ephraim  the  Quaker,  and 
the  rest,  are  not  all.  The  figures  are  set  in  their 
fitting  environment;  they  ride  their  own  horses, 
hallo  to  their  own  dogs,  and  eat  and  drink  in  their 
own  dark-panelled  rooms  that  look  out  on  the 
pleached  alleys  of  their  ancient  gardens.  They  live 
and  move  in  their  own  passed-away  atmosphere  of 
association;  and  a  faithful  effort  has  moreover  been 


THE  'BALLAD  OF  BEAU  BROCADE 
<AND  OTHER  POEMS 


PEN-SKETCHES   ON    THE    HALF-TITLE   OF    "THE    BALLAD   OF 
BEAU   BROCADE." 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS    115 

made  to  realise  each  separate  scene  with  strict  relation 
to  its  text. 

All  of  the  "Coverley"  series  came  out  in  the 
English  Illustrated.  So  also  did  the  designs  for  the 
next  book,  the  Coaching  Days  and  Coaching  Ways  of 
Mr.  Outram  Tristram,  1888.  Here  Mr.  Thomson 
had  a  topographical  collaborator,  Mr.  Herbert 
Railton,  who  did  the  major  part  of  the  very  effective 
drawings  in  this  kind.  But  Mr.  Thomson's  con- 
tributions may  fairly  be  said  to  have  exhausted  the 
"romance"  of  the  road.  Inns  and  inn-yards,  hosts 
and  ostlers  and  chambermaids,  stage-coachmen,  toll- 
keepers,  mail-coaches  struggling  in  snow-drifts, 
mail-coaches  held  up  by  highwaymen,  overturns, 
elopements,  cast  shoes,  snapped  poles,  lost  linch-pins, 
— all  the  episodes  and  moving  accidents  of  bygone 
travel  on  the  high  road  have  abundant  illustration, 
till  the  pages  seem  almost  to  reek  of  the  stableyard, 
or  ring  with  the  horn.1  And  here  it  may  be  noted, 
as  a  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Thomson's  conscientious 
horse-drawing,  that  he  depicts,  not  the  ideal,  but 
the  actual  animal.  His  steeds  are  not  "faultless 
monsters"  like  the  Dauphin's  palfrey  in  Henry  the 


1  Sometimes  a  literary  or  historical  picture  creeps  into  the  text.  Such 
are  "Swift  and  Bolingbroke  at  Bucklebury"  (p.  30) ;  "Charles  II.  recog- 
nised by  the  Ostler"  (p.  144),  and  "Barry  Lyndon  cracks  a  Bottle" 
(p.  116).  Barry  Lyndon  with  its  picaresque  note  and  Irish  background, 
would  seem  an  excellent  contribution  to  the  "Cranford"  series.  Why  does 
not  Mr.  Thomson  try  his  hand  at  it?  He  has  illustrated  Esmond,  and  the 
Great  Hoggarty  Diamond. 


n6  DE  LIBRIS 

Fifth.  They  are  "all  sorts  and  conditions"  of 
horses;  and — if  truth  required  it — would  disclose 
as  many  sand-cracks  as  Rocinante,  or  as  many  equine 
defects  ( from  wind-gall  to  the  botts)  as  those  imputed 
to  that  unhappy  "Blackberry"  sold  by  the  Vicar 
of  Wakefield  at  Welbridge  Fair  to  Mr.  Ephraim 
Jenkinson. 

The  Vicar  of  Wakefield — as  it  happens — was  Mr. 
Thomson's  next  enterprise;  and  it  is,  in  many 
respects,  a  most  memorable  one.  It  came  out  in 
December,  1890,  having  occupied  him  for  nearly 
two  years.  He  took  exceptional  pains  to  study  and 
realise  the  several  types  for  himself,  and  to  ensure 
correctness  of  costume.  From  the  first  introductory 
procession  of  the  Primrose  family  at  the  head  of 
chapter  i.  to  the  awkward  merriment  of  the  two 
Miss  Flamboroughs  at  the  close,  there  is  scarcely  a 
page  which  has  not  some  stroke  of  quiet  fun,  some 
graceful  attitude,  or  some  ingenious  contrivance  in 
composition.  Considering  that  from  Wenham's 
edition  of  1780,  nearly  every  illustrator  of  repute 
had  tried  his  hand  at  Goldsmith's  masterpiece  in 
fiction, — that  he  had  been  attempted  without  humour 
by  Stothard,  without  lightness  by  Mulready,1 — 
that  he  had  been  made  comic  by  Cruikshank,  and 
vulgarised  by  Rowlandson, — it  was  certainly  to  Mr. 
Thomson's  credit  that  he  had  approached  his  task 

1  Mulready's  illustrations  of  1843  are  here  referred  to,  not  his  pictures. 


J&;2)^ 


^ 


^^2 


^ 


PEN-SKETCH    (TRIPLET)    ON   A   FLY-LEAF  OF   "PEG   WOFFINGTON. 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS    117 

with  so  much  refinement,  reverence  and  originality. 
If  the  book  has  a  blemish,  it  is  to  be  mentioned  only 
because  the  artist,  by  his  later  practice,  seems  to  have 
recognised  it  himself.  For  the  purposes  of  process 
reproduction,  the  drawings  were  somewhat  loaded 
and  overworked. 

This  was  not  chargeable  against  the  next  volumes 
to  be  chronicled.  Mrs.  Gaskell's  Cranford,  1891, 
and  Miss  Mitford's  Our  Village,  1893,  are  still 
regarded  by  many  as  the  artist's  happiest  efforts.  I 
say  "still,"  because  Mr.  Thomson  is  only  now  in 
what  Victor  Hugo  called  the  youth  of  old  age  (as 
opposed  to  the  old  age  of  youth)  ;  and  it  would  be 
premature  to  assume  that  a  talent  so  alert  to  multiply 
and  diversify  its  efforts,  had  already  attained  the 
summit  of  its  achievement.  But  in  these  two  books 
he  had  certain  unquestionable  advantages.  One 
obviously  would  be,  that  his  audience  were  not 
already  preoccupied  by  former  illustrations;  and  he 
was  consequently  free  to  invent  his  own  personages 
and  follow  his  own  fertile  fancy,  without  recalling  to 
that  implacable  and  Gorgonising  organ,  the  "Public 
Eye,"  any  earlier  pictorial  conceptions.  Another 
thing  in  his  favour  was,  that  in  either  case,  the  very 
definite,  and  not  very  complex  types  surrendered 
themselves  readily  to  artistic  embodiment.  "It 
almost  illustrated  itself," — he  told  an  interviewer 
concerning     Cranford;     "the     characters    were    so 


n8  DE  LIBRIS 

exquisitely  and  distinctly  realised."  Every  one  has 
known  some  like  them;  and  the  delightful  Knutsford 
ladies  ( for  "Cranford"  was  "Knutsford" ) ,  the  "Boz"- 
loving  Captain  Brown  and  Mr.  Holbrook,  Peter  and 
his  father,  and  even  Martha  the  maid,  with  their  mise 
en  scene  of  card-tables  and  crackle-china,  and  pattens 
and  reticules,  are  part  of  the  memories  of  our  child- 
hood. The  same  may  be  said  of  Our  Village,  except 
that  the  breath  of  Nature  blows  more  freely  through 
it  than  through  the  quiet  Cheshire  market-town; 
and  there  is  a  larger  preponderance  of  those  "charm- 
ing glimpses  of  rural  life"  of  which  Lady  Ritchie 
speaks  admiringly  in  her  sympathetic  preface.  And 
with  regard  to  the  "bits  of  scenery" — as  Mr. 
Thomson  himself  calls  them — it  may  be  noted  that 
one  of  the  Manchester  papers,  speaking  of  Cranford, 
praised  the  artist's  intimate  knowledge  of  the  locality, 
— a  locality  he  had  never  seen.  Most  of  his  back- 
grounds were  from  sketches  made  on  Wimbledon 
Common,  near  which — until  he  moved  for  a  space 
to  the  ancient  Cinque  Port  of  Seaford  in  Sussex — he 
lived  for  the  first  years  of  his  London  life. 

In  strict  order  of  time,  Mr.  Thomson's  next 
important  effort  should  have  preceded  the  books  of 
Miss  Mitford  and  Mrs.  Gaskell.  The  novels  of 
Jane  Austen — to  which  we  now  come — if  not  the 
artist's  high-water  mark,  are  certainly  remarkable  as 
a    tour   de  force.     To   contrive   some   forty  page 


EVELINA    AND    THE    BRANGHTONS. 
(From  Miss  Burney's  Evelina.) 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS    119 

illustrations  for  each  of  Miss  Austen's  admirable,  but 
— from  an  illustrator's  standpoint — not  very  palpitat- 
ing productions, — with  a  scene  usually  confined  to 
the  dining-room  or  parlour, — with  next  to  no  animals, 
and  with  rare  opportunities  for  landscape  accessory, — 
was  an  "adventure" — in  Cervantic  phrase — which 
might  well  have  given  pause  to  a  designer  of  less 
fertility  and  resource.  But  besides  the  figures  there 
was  the  furniture;  and  acute  admirers  have  pointed 
out  that  a  nice  discretion  is  exhibited  in  graduating 
the  appointments  of  Longbourn  and  Netherfield 
Park, — of  Rosings  and  Hunsford.  But  what  is  per- 
haps more  worthy  of  remark  is  the  artist's  persistent 
attempt  to  give  individuality,  as  well  as  grace,  to  his 
dramatis  persona.  The  unspeakable  Mr.  Collins, 
Mr.  Bennet,  the  horsy  Mr.  John  Thorpe,  Mrs. 
Jennings  and  Mrs.  Norris,  the  Eltons — are  all  care- 
fully discriminated.  Nothing  can  well  be  better 
than  Mr.  Woodhouse,  with  his  "almost  immaterial 
legs"  drawn  securely  out  of  the  range  of  a  too-fierce 
fire,  chatting  placidly  to  Miss  Bates  upon  the  merits 
of  water-gruel;  nothing  more  in  keeping  than  the 
Right  Honourable  Lady  Catherine  de  Bourgh,  "in 
the  very  torrent,  tempest,  and  whirlwind"  of  her 
indignation,  superciliously  pausing  to  patronise  the 
capabilities  of  the  Longbourn  reception  rooms. 
Not  less  happy  is  the  dumbfounded  astonishment  of 
Mrs.  Bennet  at  her  toilet,  when  she  hears — to  her 


120  DE  LIBRIS 

stupefaction — that  her  daughter  Elizabeth  is  to  be 
mistress  of  Pemberley  and  ten  thousand  a  year. 
This  last  is  a  head-piece ;  and  it  may  be  observed,  as 
an  additional  difficulty  in  this  group  of  novels,  that, 
owing  to  the  circumstances  of  publication,  only  in 
one  of  the  books,  Pride  and  Prejudice,  was  Mr. 
Thomson  free  to  decorate  the  chapters  with  those 
ingenious  entetes  and  culs-de-lampe  of  which  he  so 
eminently  possesses  the  secret.1 

By  this  time  his  reputation  had  long  been  firmly 
established.  To  the  Jane  Austen  volumes  succeeded 
other  numbers  of  the  so-called  "Cranford"  series,  to 
which,  in  1894,  Mr.  Thomson  had  already  added, 
under  the  title  of  Condon* s  Song  and  other  Verses,  a 
fresh  ingathering  of  old-time  minstrelsy  from  the 
pages  of  the  English  Illustrated.  Many  of  the 
drawings  for  these,  though  of  necessity  reduced  for 
publication  in  book  form,  are  in  his  most  delightful 
and  winning  manner, — notably  perhaps  (if  one  must 
choose!)  the  martial  ballad  of  that  "Captain  of 
Militia,  Sir  Dilberry  Diddle,"  who 

— dreamt,  Fame  reports,  that  he  cut  all  the  throats 
Of  the  French  as  they  landed  in  flat-bottomed  boats 

— or  rather  were  going  to  land  any  time  during  the 

1  That  eloquence  of  subsidiary  detail,  which  has  had  so  many  exponents 
in  English  art  from  Hogarth  onwards,  is  one  of  Mr.  Thomson's  most 
striking  characteristics.  The  reader  will  find  it  exemplified  in  the  beautiful 
book-plate  at  page  ill,  which,  by  the  courtesy  of  its  owner,  Mr.  Ernest 
Brown,    I  am  permitted  to   reproduce. 


•tt-JV?. 


j5Vt-c^zrv?       (?a$* 


LADY   CASTLEWOOD    AND    HER    SON. 
(From  Thackeray's  Esmond.) 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS    121 

Seven  Years1  War.  Excellent,  too,  are  John  Gay's 
ambling  Journey  to  Exeter,  the  Angler's  Song  from 
Walton  (which  gives  its  name  to  the  collection),  and 
Fielding's  rollicking  uA-hunting  we  will  go."  Other 
"Cranford"  books,  which  now  followed,  were  James 
Lane  Allen's  Kentucky  Cardinal,  1901;  Fanny 
Burney's  Evelina,  1903 ;  Thackeray's  Esmond,  1905  ; 
and  two  of  George  Eliot's  novels — Scenes  of  Clerical 
Life,  1906,  and  Silas  Marner,  1907.  In  1899  Mr. 
Thomson  had  also  undertaken  another  book  for 
George  Allen,  an  edition  of  Reade's  Peg  Woffington, 
— a  task  in  which  he  took  the  keenest  delight, 
particularly  in  the  burlesque  character  of  Triplet. 
These  were  all  in  the  old  pen-work;  but  some  of 
the  designs  for  Silas  Marner  were  lightly  and  taste- 
fully coloured.  This  was  a  plan  the  author  had 
adopted,  with  good  effect,  not  only  in  a  special 
edition  of  Cranford  (1898),  but  for  some  of  his 
original  drawings  which  came  into  the  market  after 
exhibition.  Nothing  can  be  more  seductive  than  a 
Hugh  Thomson  pen-sketch,  when  delicately  tinted 
in  sky-blue,  rose-Du  Barry,  and  apple-green  (the 
vert-pomme  dear — as  Gautier  says — to  the  soft 
moderns) — a  treatment  which  lends  them  a  subdued 
but  indefinable  distinction,  as  of  old  china  with  a 
pedigree,  and  fully  justifies  the  amiable  enthusiasm 
of  the  phrase-maker  who  described  their  inventor 
as  the  "Charles  Lamb  of  illustration." 


122  DE  LIBRIS 

From  the  above  enumeration  certain  omissions 
have  of  necessity  been  made.  Besides  the  books 
mentioned,  Mr.  Thomson  has  contrived  to  prepare 
for  newspapers  and  magazines  many  closely-studied 
sketches  of  contemporary  manners.  Some  of  the 
best  of  his  work  in  this  way  is  to  be  found  in  the 
late  Mrs.  E.  T.  Cook's  Highways  and  Byways  of 
London  Life,  1902.  For  the  Highways  and  Byways 
series,  he  has  also  illustrated,  wholly  or  in  part, 
volumes  on  Ireland,  North  Wales,  Devon,  Cornwall 
and  Yorkshire.  The  last  volume,  Kent,  1907,  is 
entirely  decorated  by  himself.  In  this  instance,  his 
drawings  throughout  are  in  pencil,  and  he  is  his  own 
topographer.  It  is  a  remarkable  departure,  both  in 
manner  and  theme,  though  Mr.  Thomson's  liking 
for  landscape  has  always  been  pronounced.  "I 
would  desire  above  all  things,"  he  told  an  inter- 
viewer, "to  pass  my  time  in  painting  landscape. 
Landscape  pictures  always  attract  me,  and  the  grand 
examples,  Gainsboroughs,  Claudes,  Cromes,  and 
Turners,  to  be  seen  any  day  in  our  National  Gallery, 
are  a  source  of  never-failing  yearning  and  delight." 
The  original  drawings  for  the  Kent  book  are  of 
great  beauty;  and  singularly  dexterous  in  the  varied 
methods  by  which  the  effect  is  produced.  The  artist 
is  now  at  work  on  the  county  of  Surrey.  It  is 
earnest  of  his  versatility  that,  in  1904,  he  illustrated 
for  Messrs.  Wells,  Darton  and  Co.,  with  conspicuous 


jM^erc^-v  t-Z. 


4-4 ? 


MERCERY    LAKE,   CANTERBURY. 
(From  a  pencil-drawing  for  Highways  and  Byways  in  Kent.) 


MODERN  BOOK  ILLUSTRATORS    123 

success,  a  modernised  prose  version  of  certain  of 
Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales,  as  well  as  Tales  from 
Maria  Edgeworth,  1903;  and  he  also  executed,  in 
1892  and  1895,1  some  charming  designs  to  selec- 
tions from  the  verses  of  the  present  writer,  who  has 
long  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  his  friendship. 

Personal  traits  do  not  come  within  the  province 
of  this  paper,  or  it  would  be  pleasant  to  dwell  upon 
Mr.  Thomson's  modesty,  his  untiring  industry,  and 
his  devotion  to  his  art.  But  in  regard  to  that  art, 
it  may  be  observed  that  to  characterise  it  solely  as 
''packing  the  memory  with  pleasant  fancies"  may 
suffice  for  an  exordium,  but  is  inadequate  as  a  final 
appreciation.  Let  me  therefore  note  down,  as  they 
occur  to  me,  some  of  his  more  prominent  pictorial 
characteristics.  With  three  of  the  artists  mentioned 
in  this  and  the  preceding  paper,  he  has  obvious 
affinities,  while,  in  a  sense,  he  includes  them  all. 
If  he  does  not  excel  Stothard  in  the  gift  of  grace, 
he  does  in  range  and  variety;  and  he  more  than 
rivals  him  in  composition.  He  has  not,  like  Miss 
Greenaway,  endowed  the  art-world  with  a  special 
type  of  childhood;  but  his  children  are  always  life- 
like and  engaging.  (Compare,  at  a  venture,  the 
boy  soldiers  whom  Frank  Castlewood  is  drilling  in 
chapter  xi.  of  Esmond,  or  the  delightful  little  fellow 
who   is   throwing  up   his   arms   in   chapter   ix.    of 

1  The  Ballad  of  Beau  Brocade,  and  The  Story  of  Rosina. 


124  DE  LIBRIS 

Emma) .  As  regards  dogs  and  horses  and  the  rest, 
his  colleague,  Mr.  Joseph  Pennell,  an  expert  critic, 
and  a  most  accomplished  artist,  holds  that  he  has 
"long  since  surpassed"  Randolph  Caldecott.1  I 
doubt  whether  Mr.  Thomson  himself  would  concur 
with  his  eulogist  in  this.  But  he  has  assuredly 
followed  Caldecott  close;  and  in  opulence  of  pro- 
duction which — as  Macaulay  insisted — should  always 
count,  has  naturally  exceeded  that  gifted,  but  short- 
lived, designer.  If,  pursuing  an  ancient  practice, 
one  were  to  attempt  to  label  Mr.  Thomson  with  a 
special  distinction  apart  from,  and  in  addition  to,  his 
other  merits,  I  should  be  inclined  to  designate  him 
the  "Master  of  the  Vignette," — taking  that  word  in 
its  primary  sense  as  including  head-pieces,  tail-pieces 
and  initial  letters.  In  this  department,  no  draughts- 
man I  can  call  to  mind  has  ever  shown  greater 
fertility  of  invention,  so  much  playful  fancy,  so 
much  grace,  so  much  kindly  humour,  and  such  a 
sane  and  wholesome  spirit  of  fun. 

1  Pen-Drawing  and  Pen-Draughtsmen,   2nd  ed.    1894,  P-   358. 


HORATIAN  ODE 

ON  THE  TERCENTENARY  OF 

"DON  QUIXOTE" 


125 


HORATIAN  ODE 

ON  THE  TERCENTENARY  OF 

"DON  QUIXOTE" 

{Published  at  Madrid,  by  Francisco  de  Robles,  January  1605) 
"Para  mi  sola  nacio  don  Quixote,  y  yo  para  el." — Cervantes 

Advents  we  greet  of  great  and  small; 
Much  we  extol  that  may  not  live ; 
Yet  to  the  new-born  Type  we  give 
No  care  at  all ! 

This  year,1 — three  centuries  past, — by  age 

More  maimed  than  by  Lepanto's  fight,— 
This  year  Cervantes  gave  to  light 
His  matchless  page, 

Whence  first  outrode  th'  immortal  Pair, — 
The  half-crazed  Hero  and  his  hind, — 
To  make  sad  laughter  for  mankind; 
And  whence  they  fare 

1I.e.  January  1905. 
X27 


128  DE  LIBRIS 

Throughout  all  Fiction  still,  where  chance 
Allies  Life's  dulness  with  its  dreams — 
Allies  what  is,  with  what  but  seems, — 
Fact  and  Romance: — 

O  Knight  of  fire  and  Squire  of  earth! — 
O  changing  give-and-take  between 
The  aim  too  high,  the  aim  too  mean, 
I  hail  your  birth, — 

Three  centuries  past, — in  sunburned  Spain, 
And  hang,  on  Time's  Pantheon  wall, 
My  votive  tablet  to  recall 
That  lasting  gain ! 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS 


129 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS 

One  common  grave,  according  to  Garrick,  covers  the 
actor  and  his  art.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
raconteur.  Oral  tradition,  or  even  his  own  writings, 
may  preserve  his  precise  words;  but  his  peculiarities 
of  voice  or  action,  his  tricks  of  utterance  and  in- 
tonation,— all  the  collateral  details  which  serve  to 
lend  distinction  or  piquancy  to  the  performance — 
perish  irrevocably.  The  glorified  gramophone  of 
the  future  may  perhaps  rectify  this  for  a  new  genera- 
tion; and  give  us,  without  mechanical  drawback,  the 
authentic  accents  of  speakers  dead  and  gone;  but 
it  can  never  perpetuate  the  dramatic  accompaniment 
of  gesture  and  expression.  If,  as  always,  there  are 
exceptions  to  this  rule,  they  are  necessarily  evanescent. 
Now  and  then,  it  may  be,  some  clever  mimic  will 
recall  the  manner  of  a  passed-away  predecessor;  and 
he  may  even  contrive  to  hand  it  on,  more  or  less 
effectually,  to  a  disciple.  But  the  reproduction 
is  of  brief  duration;  and  it  is  speedily  effaced  or 
transformed. 

131 


132  DE  LIBRIS 

In  this  way  it  is,  however,  that  we  get  our 
most  satisfactory  idea  of  the  once  famous  table- 
talker,  Samuel  Rogers.  Charles  Dickens,  who  sent 
Rogers  several  of  his  books;  who  dedicated  Master 
Humphrey's  Clock  to  him ;  and  who  frequently  assisted 
at  the  famous  breakfasts  in  St.  James's  Place,  was 
accustomed — rather  cruelly,  it  may  be  thought — to 
take  off  his  host's  very  characteristic  way  of  telling  a 
story;  and  it  is,  moreover,  affirmed  by  Mr.  Percy 
Fitzgerald1  that,  in  the  famous  Readings,  "the 
strangely  obtuse  and  owl-like  expression,  and  the 
slow,  husky  croak"  of  Mr.  Justice  Stareleigh  in  the 
"Trial  from  Pickwick"  were  carefully  copied  from 
the  author  of  the  Pleasures  of  Memory.  That 
Dickens  used  thus  to  amuse  his  friends  is  confirmed 
by  the  autobiography  of  the  late  Frederick  Locker,2 
who  perfectly  remembered  the  old  man,  to  see  whom 
he  had  been  carried,  as  a  boy,  by  his  father.  He  had 
also  heard  Dickens  repeat  one  of  Rogers's  stock 
anecdotes  (it  was  that  of  the  duel  in  a  dark  room, 
where  the  more  considerate  combatant,  firing  up 
the  chimney,  brings  down  his  adversary)  ;3 — and  he 
speaks  of  Dickens  as  mimicking  Rogers's  "calm,  low- 
pitched,  drawling  voice  and  dry  biting  manner  very 


1  Recreations  of  a  Literary  Man,  1882,  p.    137. 

2  My   Confidences,  by  Frederick  Locker-Lampson,   1896,  pp.  98   and  325. 
8  The  duellists  were  an   Englishman  and  a   Frenchman;   and  Rogers  was 

in  the  habit  of  adding  as  a  postscript:  "When  I  tell  that  in  Paris,  I  always 
put  the   Englishman  up  the  chimney!" 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS    133 

comically."1  At  the  same  time,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  these  reminiscences  relate  to  Rogers  in  his  old 
age.  He  was  over  seventy  when  Dickens  published 
his  first  book,  Sketches  by  Boz;  and,  though  it  is 
possible  that  Rogers's  voice  was  always  rather 
sepulchral,  and  his  enunciation  unusually  deliberate 
and  monotonous,  he  had  nevertheless,  as  Locker  says, 
"made  story-telling  a  fine  art."  Continued  practice 
had  given  him  the  utmost  economy  of  words;  and 
as  far  as  brevity  and  point  are  concerned,  his  method 
left  nothing  to  be  desired.  Many  of  his  best  efforts 
are  still  to  be  found  in  the  volume  of  Table-Talk 
edited  for  Moxon  in  1856  by  the  Rev.  Alexander 
Dyce;  or  preferably,  as  actually  written  down  by 
Rogers  himself  in  the  delightful  Recollections  issued 
three  years  later  by  his  nephew  and  executor,  William 
Sharpe. 

But  although  the  two  things  are  often  intimately 
connected,  the  "books,"  and  not  the  "stories"  of 
Rogers,  are  the  subject  of  the  present  paper.  After 
this,  it  sounds  paradoxical  to  have  to  admit  that  his 
reputation  as  a  connoisseur  far  overshadowed  his  re- 
putation as  a  bilbliophile.  When,  in  December  1855, 
he  died,  his  pictures  and  curios, — his  "articles  of  vir- 
tue and  bigotry"  as  a  modern  Malaprop  would  have 
styled  them, — attracted  far  more  attention  than  the  not 

1  It  may  be  added  that   Mr.   Percy  Fitzgerald,  himself  no  mean  mime, 
may  be   sometimes  persuaded  to  imitate  Dickens   imitating   Rogers. 


134  DE  LIBRIS 

very  numerous  volumes  forming  his  library.1  What 
people  flocked  to  see  at  the  tiny  treasure-house  over- 
looking the  Green  Park,2  which  its  nonegenarian 
owner  had  occupied  for  more  than  fifty  years,  were 
the  ''Puck"  and  "Strawberry  Girl"  of  Sir  Joshua, 
the  Titians,  Giorgiones,  and  Guidos,3  the  Poussins 
and  Claudes,  the  drawings  of  Raphael  and  Durer  and 
Lucas  van  Leyden,  the  cabinet  decorated  by  Stothard, 
the  chimney-piece  carved  by  Flaxman ;  the  miniatures 
and  bronzes  and  Etruscan  vases, — all  the  "infinite 
riches  in  a  little  room,"  which  crowded  No.  22  from 
garret  to  basement.  These  were  the  rarities  that 
filled  the  columns  of  the  papers  and  the  voices  of  the 
quidnuncs  when  in  1856  they  came  to  the  hammer. 
But  although  the  Press  of  that  day  takes  careful 
count  of  these  things,  it  makes  little  reference  to  the 
sale  of  the  "books"  of  the  banker-bard  who  spent 
some  £15,000  on  the  embellishments  of  his  Italy 
and  his  Poems;  and  although  Dr.  Burney  says  that 
Rogers's  library  included  "the  best  editions  of  the 
best  authors  in  most  languages,"  he  had  clearly  no 
widespread  reputation  as  a  book-collector  pure  and 
simple.     Nevertheless  he  loved  his  books, — that  is, 

1  The  prices  obtained  confirm  this.  The  total  sum  realised  was 
£45,188:14:3.     Of  this  the  books  represented  no  more  than    £1415:5. 

2  This — with  its  triple  range  of  bow-windows,  from  one  of  which  Rogers 
used  to  watch  his  favourite  sunsets — is  now  the  residence  of  Lord 
Northcliffe. 

3  Three  of  these — the  "Noli  me  tangere"  of  Titian,  Giorgione's  "Knight 
in  Armour,"  and  Guido's  "Ecce  Homo" — are  now  in  the  National  Gallery, 
to  which  they  were  bequeathed  by  Rogers. 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS    135 

he  loved  the  books  he  read.  And,  as  far  as  can  be 
ascertained,  he  anticipated  the  late  Master  of  Balliol, 
since  he  read  only  the  books  he  liked.  Nor  was  he 
ever  diverted  from  his  predilections  by  mere  fashion 
or  novelty.  "He  followed  Bacon's  maxim" — says 
one  who  knew  him — "to  read  much,  not  many 
things:  multum  legere,  non  multa.  He  used  to  say, 
When  a  new  book  comes  out,  I  read  an  old  one.'  ni 
The  general  Rogers-sale  at  Christie's  took  place 
in  the  spring  of  1856,  and  twelve  days  had  been 
absorbed  before  the  books  were  reached.  Their 
sale  took  six  days  more — i.e.  from  May  12  to 
May  19.  As  might  be  expected  from  Rogers's 
traditional  position  in  the  literary  world,  the 
catalogue  contains  many  presentation  copies.  What, 
at  first  sight,  would  seem  the  earliest,  is  the  Works 
of  Edward  Moore,  1796,  2  vols.  But  if  this  be 
the  fabulist  and  editor  of  the  World,  it  can  scarcely 
have  been  received  from  the  writer,  since,  in  1796, 
Moore  had  been  dead  for  nearly  forty  years.  With 
BloomfiekTs  poems  of  1802,  1.  p.,  we  are  on  surer 
ground,  for  Rogers,  like  Capel  Lofft,  had  been  kind 
to  the  author  of  The  Farmer's  Boy,  and  had  done 
his  best  to  obtain  him  a  pension.  Another  early 
tribute,  subsequently  followed  by  the  Tales  of  the 
Hall,  was  Crabbe's  Borough,  which  he  sent  to 
Rogers   in    18 10,    in   response  to   polite   overtures 

1  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.   civ.  p.   105,  by  Abraham  Hayward. 


136  DE  LIBRIS 

made  to  him  by  the  poet.  This  was  the  beginning 
of  a  lasting  friendship,  of  no  small  import  to  Crabbe, 
as  it  at  once  admitted  him  to  Rogers's  circle,  an 
advantage  of  which  there  are  many  traces  in  Crabbe's 
journal.  Next  comes  Madame  de  StaeTs  much  pro- 
scribed De  V Allemagne  (the  Paris  edition)  ;  and 
from  its  date,  1813,  it  must  have  been  presented 
to  Rogers  when  its  irrepressible  author  was  in 
England.  She  often  dined  or  breakfasted  at  St. 
James's  Place,  where  (according  to  Byron),  she  out- 
talked  Whitbread,  confounded  Sir  Humphry  Davy, 
and  was  herself  well  "ironed"1  by  Sheridan.  Rogers 
considered  Corinne  to  be  her  best  novel,  and 
Delphine  a  terrible  falling-off.  The  Germany  he 
found  "very  fatiguing."  "She  writes  her  works 
four  or  five  times  over,  correcting  them  only  in 
that  way" — he  says.  "The  end  of  a  chapter  [is] 
always  the  most  obscure,  as  she  ends  with  an 
epigram."2  Another  early  presentation  copy  is 
the  second  edition  of  Bowles's  Missionary }  18 15. 
According  to  Rogers,  who  claims  to  have  suggested 
the  poem,  it  was  to  have  been  inscribed  to  him. 
But  somehow  or  other,  the  book  got  dedicated  to 

1  Perhaps  a  remembrance  of  Mrs.  Slipslop's  "ironing" 

2  Clayden's  Rogers  and  his  Contemporaries,  1889,  i.  225.  As  an  epi- 
grammatist himself,  Rogers  might  have  been  more  indulgent  to  a  consoeur. 
Here  is  one  of  Madame  de  StaeTs  "ends  of  chapters": — La  monotonie, 
dans  la  retraite,  tranquillise  Vame;  la  monotonie,  dans  le  grand  monde, 
fatigue  I'esprit"  (ch.  viii.).  But  he  evidently  found  her  rather  over- 
powering. 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS    137 

a  noble  lord  who — Rogers  adds  drily — never,  either 
by  word  or  letter,  made  any  acknowledgment 
of  the  homage.1  It  is  not  impossible  that  there  is 
some  confusion  of  recollection  here,  or  Rogers  is 
misreported  by  Dyce.  The  first  anonymous  edition 
of  the  Missionary,  18 13,  had  no  dedication;  and 
the  second  was  inscribed  to  the  Marquess  of 
Lansdowne  because  he  had  been  prominent  among 
those  who  recognised  the  merit  of  its  predecessor. 

Several  of  Scott's  poems,  with  Rogers's  autograph, 
and  Scott's  card,  appear  in  the  catalogue;  and,  in 
1 8 12,  Byron,  who  a  year  after  inscribed  the  Giaour 
to  Rogers,  sent  him  the  first  two  cantos  of  Childe 
Harold.  In  1838,  Moore  presents  Lalla  Rookh, 
with  Heath's  plates,  a  work  which,  upon  its  first 
appearance,  twenty  years  earlier,  had  been  dedicated 
to  Rogers.  In  1839  Charles  Dickens  followed  with 
Nicholas  Nickleby,  succeeded  a  year  later  by  Master 
Humphrey's  Clock  ( 1 840- 1 ) ,  also  dedicated  to  Rogers 
in  recognition,  not  only  of  his  poetical  merit,  but  of 
his  "active  sympathy  with  the  poorest  and  humblest 
of  his  kind."  Rogers  was  fond  of  "Little  Nell"; 
and  in  the  Preface  to  Barnaby  Rudge,  Dickens 
gracefully  acknowledged  that  "for  a  beautiful 
thought"  in  the  seventy-second  chapter  of  the  Old 
Curiosity  Shop,  he  was  indebted  to  Rogers's  Ginevra 
in  the  Italy : — 

1  Table-Talk,    1856,  p.   258. 


138  DE  LIBRIS 

And  long  might'st  thou  have  seen 
An  old  man  wandering  as  in  quest  of  something, 
Something  he  could  not  find — he  knew  not  what. 

The  American  Notes,  1842,  was  a  further  offering 
from  Dickens.  Among  other  gifts  may  be  noted 
Wordsworth's  Poems,  1827-35;  Campbell's  Pilgrim 
of  Glencoe,  1842;  Longfellow's  Ballads  and  Voices 
of  the  Night,  1840-2;  Macaulay's  Lays  and 
Tennyson's  Poems,  1842;  and  lastly,  Hazlitt's 
Criticisms  on  Art,  1844,  and  Carlyle's  Letters  and 
Speeches  of  Cromwell,  1846.  Brougham's  philo- 
sophical novel  of  Albert  Lunel;  or,  the  Chateau  of 
Languedoc,  3  vols.  1844,  figures  in  the  catalogue 
as  "withdrawn."  It  had  been  suppressed  "for 
private  reasons"  upon  the  eve  of  publication;  and 
this  particular  copy  being  annotated  by  Rogers  (to 
whom  it  was  inscribed)  those  concerned  were  no 
doubt  all  the  more  anxious  that  it  should  not  get 
abroad.  Inspection  of  the  reprint  of  1872  shows, 
however,  that  want  of  interest  was  its  chief  error. 
A  reviewer  of  1858  roundly  calls  it  "feeble"  and 
"commonplace";  and  it  could  hardly  have  increased 
its  writer's  reputation.  Indeed,  by  some,  it  was  not 
supposed  to  be  from  his  Lordship's  pen  at  all. 
Rogers,  it  may  be  added,  frequently  annotated  his 
books.  His  copies  of  Pope,  Gray  and  Scott  had  many 
marginalia.  Clarke's  and  Fox's  histories  of  James  II. 
were  also  works  which  he  decorated  in  this  way. 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS    139 

As  already  hinted,  not  very  many  biblio- 
graphical curiosities  are  included  in  the  St.  James's 
Place  collection;  and  to  look  for  Shakespeare 
quartos  or  folios,  for  example,  would  be  idle. 
Ordinary  editions  of  Shakespeare,  such  as  Johnson's 
and  Theobald's;  Shakespeariana,  such  as  Mrs. 
Montagu's  Essay  and  Ayscough's  Index, — these  are 
there  of  course.  If  the  list  also  takes  in  Thomas 
Caldecott's  Hamlet,  and  As  you  like  it  (1832),  that 
is,  first,  because  the  volume  is  a  presentation  copy; 
and  secondly,  because  Caldecott's  colleague  in  his 
frustrate  enterprise  was  Crowe,  Rogers's  Miltonic 
friend,  hereafter  mentioned.  Rogers's  own  feeling 
for  Shakespeare  was  cold  and  hypercritical;  and 
he  was  in  the  habit  of  endorsing  with  emphasis 
Ben  Jonson's  aspiration  that  the  master  had  blotted 
a  good  many  of  his  too-facile  lines.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  possible  to  pick  out  a  few  exceptional  volumes 
from  Mr.  Christie's  record.  Among  the  earliest 
comes  a  copy  of  Garth's  Dispensary,  1703,  which 
certainly  boasts  an  illustrious  pedigree.  Pope,  who 
received  it  from  the  author,  had  carefully  corrected 
it  in  several  places;  and  in  1744  bequeathed  it  to 
Warburton.  Warburton,  in  his  turn,  handed  it  on 
to  Mason,  from  whom  it  descended  to  Lord  St. 
Helens,  by  whom,  again,  shortly  before  his  death 
(1815),  it  was  presented  to  Rogers.  To  Pope's 
corrections,  which  Garth  adopted,  Mason  had  added 

f  OFTHf 


140  DE  LIBRIS 

a  comment.  What  made  the  volume  of  further 
interest  was,  that  it  contained  Lord  Dorchester's 
receipt  for  his  subscription  to  Pope's  Homer]  and, 
inserted  at  the  end,  a  full-length  portrait  of  Pope; 
viz.,  that  engraved  in  Warton's  edition  of  1797,  as 
sketched  in  pen-and-ink  by  William  Hoare  of  Bath. 
Another  interesting  item  is  the  quarto  first  edition 
(the  first  three  books)  of  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene, 
Ponsonbie,  1590:  and  a  third,  the  Paradise  Lost 
of  Milton  in  ten  books,  the  original  text  of  1667 
(with  the  1669  title-page  and  the  Argument  and 
Address  to  the  Reader) — both  bequeathed  to  Rogers 
by  W.  Jackson  of  Edinburgh.  (One  of  the  stock 
exhibits  at  "Memory  Hall" — as  22  St.  James's 
Place  was  playfully  called  by  some  of  the  owner's 
friends — was  Milton's  receipt  to  Symmons  the 
printer  for  the  five  pounds  he  received  for  his 
epic.  This,  framed  and  glazed,  hung,  according  to 
Lady  Eastlake,  on  one  of  the  doors).1  A  fourth 
rare  book  was  William  Bonham's  black-letter  Chaucer, 
a  folio  which  had  been  copiously  annotated  in  MS. 
by  Home  Tooke,  who  gave  it  to  Rogers.  It  more- 
over contained,  at  folio  221,  the  record  of  Tooke's 


1  It  was,  no  doubt,  identical  with  the  "Original  Articles  of  Agreement" 
(Add.  MSS.  18,861)  between  Milton  and  Samuel  Symmons,  printer, 
dated  27th  April,  1667,  presented  by  Rogers  in  1852  to  the  British  Museum. 
Besides  the  above-mentioned  £5  down,  there  were  to  be  three  further 
payments  of  £5  each  on  the  sale  of  three  editions,  each  of  1300  copies. 
^The  second  edition  appeared  in   1674,  the  year  of  the  author's  death. 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS    141 

arrest  at  Wimbledon  on  16th  May,  1794,  and 
subsequent  committal  on  the  19th  to  the  Tower, 
for  alleged  high  treason.1  Further  notabilia  in  this 
category  were  the  Duke  of  Marlborough's  Hypnero- 
tomachie  of  Poliphilus,  Paris,  1554,  and  also  the 
Aldine  edition  of  1499;  the  very  rare  1572  issue 
of  Camoens's  Lusiads;  Holbein's  Dance  of  Death, 
the  Lyons  issues  of  1538  and  1547;  first  editions 
of  Bewick's  Birds  and  Quadrupeds;  Le  Sueur's 
Life  of  St.  Bruno,  with  the  autograph  of  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  and  a  rare  quarto  (15 16)  of  Boccaccio's 
Decameron. 

But  the  mere  recapitulation  of  titles  readily  grows 
tedious,  even  to  the  elect;  and  I  turn  to  some  of 
the  volumes  with  which,  from  references  in  the  Table- 
Talk  and  Recollections,  their  owner  might  seem 
to  be  more  intimately  connected.  Foremost  among 
these — one  would  think — should  come  his  own 
productions.  Most  of  these,  no  doubt,  are  included 
under  the  auctioneers'  heading  of  "Works  and  Illus- 
trations."   In  the  "Library"  proper,  however,  there 


1  He  was  acquitted.  His  notes,  in  pencil,  and  relating  chiefly  to  his 
Diversions  of  Purley,  were  actually  written  in  the  Tower.  Rogers,  who 
was  present  at  the  trial  in  November,  mentioned,  according  to  Dyce,  a 
curious  incident  bearing  upon  a  now  obsolete  custom  referred  to  by 
Goldsmith  and  others.  As  usual,  the  prisoner's  dock,  in  view  of  possible 
jail-fever,  was  strewn  with  sweet-smelling  herbs — fennel,  rosemary  and 
the  like.  Tooke  indignantly  swept  them  away.  Another  of  several  char- 
acteristic anecdotes  told  by  Rogers  of  Tooke  is  as  follows: — Being  asked 
once  at  college  what  his  father  was,  he  replied,  "A  Turkey  Merchant." 
Tooke  pere  was  a  poulterer  in  Clare  Market. 


142  DE  LIBRIS 

are  few  traces  of  them.  There  is  a  quarto  copy  of 
the  unfortunate  Columbus,  with  Stothard's  sketches; 
and  there  is  the  choice  little  Pleasures  of  Memory 
of  1810,  with  Luke  Clennell's  admirable  cuts  in 
facsimile  from  the  same  artist's  pen-and-ink, — a 
volume  which,  come  what  may,  will  always  hold  its 
own  in  the  annals  of  book-illustration.  That  there 
were  more  than  one  of  these  latter  may  be  an 
accident.  Rogers,  nevertheless,  like  many  book- 
lovers,  must  have  indulged  in  duplicates.  According 
to  Hayward,  once  at  breakfast,  when  some  one  quoted 
Gray's  irresponsible  outburst  concerning  the  novels 
of  Marivaux  and  Crebillon  le  fils,  Rogers  asked  his 
guests,  three  in  number,  whether  they  were  familiar 
with  Marivaux's  Vie  de  Marianne,  a  book  which  he 
himself  confesses  to  have  read  through  six  times, 
and  which  French  critics  still  hold,  on  inconclusive 
evidence,  to  have  been  the  ''only  begetter"  of 
Richardson's  Pamela  and  the  sentimental  novel. 
None  of  the  trio  knew  anything  about  it.  "Then 
I  will  lend  you  each  a  copy,"  rejoined  Rogers;  and 
the  volumes  were  immediately  produced,  doubtless 
by  that  faithful  and  indefatigable  factotum,  Edmund 
Paine,  of  whom  his  master  was  wont  to  affirm  that 
he  would  not  only  find  any  book  in  the  house, 
but  out  of  it  as  well.  What  is  more  (unless  it  be 
assumed  that  the  poet's  stock  was  larger  still),  one, 
at  least,  of  the  three  copies  must  have  been  returned, 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS    143 

since  there  is  a  copy  in  the  catalogue.  As  might 
be  expected  in  the  admirer  of  Marivaux's  heroine, 
the  list  is  also  rich  in  Jean-Jacques,  whose  "gout  vif 
pour  les  dejeuners"  this  Amphitryon  often  extolled, 
quoting  with  approval  Rousseau's  opinion  that  "C'est 
le  temps  de  la  journee  ou  nous  sommes  le  plus  tran- 
quilles,  oil  nous  causons  le  plus  a  notre  aise"  Another 
of  his  favourite  authors  was  Manzoni,  whose  Promessi 
Sposi  he  was  inclined  to  think  he  would  rather  have 
written  than  all  Scott's  novels;  and  he  never  tired 
of  reading  Louis  Racine's  Memoires  of  his  father, 
1747, — that  "filon  de  Vor  pur  du  dix-septieme  siecle" 
— as  Villemain  calls  it — "qui  se  prolonge  dans  V age 
suivant"  Some  of  Rogers's  likings  sound  strange 
enough  nowadays.  With  Campbell,  he  delighted 
in  Cowper's  Homer,  which  he  assiduously  studied, 
and  infinitely  preferred  to  that  of  Pope.  Into 
Chapman's  it  must  be  assumed  that  he  had  not 
looked — certainly  he  has  left  no  sonnet  on  the 
subject.  Milton  was  perhaps  his  best-loved  bard. 
"When  I  was  travelling  in  Italy  (he  says),  I  made 
two  authors  my  constant  study  for  versification, — 
Milton  and  Crowe."  (The  italics  are  ours.)  It  is 
an  odd  collocation;  but  not  unintelligible.  William 
Crowe,  the  now  forgotten  Public  Orator  of  Oxford, 
and  author  of  Lewesdon  Hill,  was  an  intimate  friend; 
a  writer  on  versification;  and,  last  but  not  least, 
a  very  respectable  echo  of  the  Miltonic  note,   as 


144  DE  LIBRIS 

the  following,  from  a  passage  dealing  with  the  loss 
in  1786  of  the  Halsewell  East  Indiaman  off  the 
coast  of  Dorset,  sufficiently  testifies: — 

The  richliest-laden  ship 
Of  spicy  Ternate,  or  that  annual  sent 
To  the  Philippines  o'er  the  southern  main 
From  Acapulco,  carrying  massy  gold, 
Were  poor  to  this; — freighted  with  hopeful  Youth 
And  Beauty,  and  high  Courage  undismay'd 
By  mortal  terrors,  and  paternal  Love,  etc.,  etc. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  Rogers  caught  the  mould 
of  his  blank  verse  from  the  copy  rather  than  from 
the  model.  In  the  matter  of  style — as  Flaubert  has 
said — the  second-bests  are  often  the  better  teachers. 
More  is  to  be  learned  from  La  Fontaine  and  Gautier 
than  from  Moliere  and  Victor  Hugo. 

Many  art-books,  many  books  addressed  specially 
to  the  connoisseur,  as  well  as  most  of  those  invalu- 
able volumes  no  gentleman's  library  should  be  with- 
out, found  their  places  on  Rogers's  hospitable  shelves. 
Of  such,  it  is  needless  to  speak;  nor,  in  this  place, 
is  it  necessary  to  deal  with  his  finished  and  amiable, 
but  not  very  vigorous  or  vital  poetry.  A  parting 
word  may,  however,  be  devoted  to  the  poet  himself. 
Although,  during  his  lifetime,  and  particularly 
towards  its  close,  his  weak  voice  and  singularly 
blanched  appearance  exposed  him  perpetually  to  a 
kind   of  brutal   personality   now   happily  tabooed, 


THE  BOOKS  OF  SAMUEL  ROGERS    145 

it  cannot  be  pretended  that,  either  in  age  or  youth, 
he  was  an  attractive-looking  man.  In  these  cases, 
as  in  that  of  Goldsmith,  a  measure  of  burlesque 
sometimes  provides  a  surer  criterion  than  academic 
portraiture.  The  bust  of  the  sculptor-caricaturist, 
Danton,  is  of  course  what  even  Hogarth  would  have 
classed  as  outre  x ;  but  there  is  reason  for  believing 
that  Maclise's  sketch  in  Fraser  of  the  obtrusively 
bald,  cadaverous  and  wizened  figure  in  its  arm-chair, 
which  gave  such  a  shudder  of  premonition  to  Goethe, 
and  which  Maginn,  reflecting  the  popular  voice,  de- 
clared to  be  a  mortal  likeness — "painted  to  the  very 
death" — was  more  like  the  original  than  his  pictures 
by  Lawrence  and  Hoppner.  One  can  comprehend, 
too,  that  the  person  whom  nature  had  so  ungenerously 
endowed,  might  be  perfectly  capable  of  retorting  to 
rudeness,  or  the  still-smarting  recollection  of  rude- 
ness, with  those  weapons  of  mordant  wit  and  acrid 
epigram  which  are  not  unfrequently  the  protective 
compensation  of  physical  shortcomings.  But  this 
conceded,  there  are  numberless  anecdotes  which 
testify  to  Rogers's  cultivated  taste  and  real  good 
breeding,  to  his  genuine  benevolence,  to  his  almost 
sentimental  craving  for  appreciation  and  affection. 
In  a  paper  on  his  books,  it  is  permissible  to  end  with 


1  Rogers's  own  copy  of  this,  which  (it  may  be  added),  he  held  in  horror, 
now  belongs  to  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse.  Lord  Londonderry  has  a  number  of 
Danton's  busts. 


i46  DE  LIBRIS 

a  bookish  anecdote.  One  of  his  favourite  memories, 
much  repeated  in  his  latter  days,  was  that  of  Cowley's 
laconic  Will, — "I  give  my  body  to  the  earth,  and 
my  soul  to  my  Maker."  Lady  Eastlake  shall  tell 
the  rest: — "This  ....  proved  on  one  occasion  too 
much  for  one  of  the  party,  and  in  an  incautious 
moment  a  flippant  young  lady  exclaimed,  'But,  Mr. 
Rogers,  what  of  Cowley's  property?  An  ominous 
silence  ensued,  broken  only  by  a  sotto  voce  from  the 
late  Mrs.  Procter:  'Well,  my  dear,  you  have  put 
your  foot  in  it;  no  more  invitations  for  you  in  a 
hurry.'  But  she  did  the  kind  old  man,  then  above 
ninety,  wrong.  The  culprit  continued  to  receive  the 
same  invitations  and  the  same  welcome."1 

1  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  167,  p.  512. 


PEPYS'  "DIARY" 


H7 


PEPYS'  "DIARY" 

To  One  who  asked  why  he  wrote  it 

You  ask  me  what  was  his  intent  ? 

In  truth,  I'm  not  a  German; 
Tis  plain  though  that  he  neither  meant 

A  Lecture  nor  a  Sermon. 

But  there  it  is, — the  thing's  a  Fact. 

I  find  no  other  reason 
But  that  some  scribbling  itch  attacked 

Him  in  and  out  of  season, 

To  write  what  no  one  else  should  read, 
With  this  for  second  meaning, 

To  "cleanse  his  bosom"  (and  indeed 
It  sometimes  wanted  cleaning)  ; 

To  speak,  as  'twere,  his  private  mind, 

Unhindered  by  repression, 

To  make  his  motley  life  a  kind 

Of  Midas' 'ears  confession; 
149 


150  DE  LIBRIS 

And  thus  outgrew  this  work  per  se, — 
This  queer,  kaleidoscopic, 

Delightful,  blabbing,  vivid,  free 
Hotch-pot  of  daily  topic, 

So  artless  in  its  vanity, 

So  fleeting,  so  eternal, 

So  packed  with  "poor  Humanity'' — 
We  know  as  Pepys'  his  journal.1 


1  Written    for    the    Pepys*    Dinner    at    Magdalene    College,    Cambridge, 
February  23rd,  1905. 


A  FRENCH  CRITIC  ON  BATH 


«5t 


A  FRENCH  CRITIC  ON  BATH 

Among  other  pleasant  premonitions  of  the  present 
entente  cordiale  between  France  and  England  is  the 
increased  attention  which,  for  some  time  past,  our 
friends  of  Outre  Manche  have  been  devoting  to  our 
literature.  That  this  is  wholly  of  recent  growth,  is 
not,  of  course,  to  be  inferred.  It  must  be  nearly 
five-and- forty  years  since  M.  Hippolyte  Taine  issued 
his  logical  and  orderly  Histoire  de  la  Litterature 
Anglaise;  while  other  isolated  efforts  of  insight  and 
importance — such  as  the  Laurence  Sterne  of  M.  Paul 
Stapfer,  and  the  excellent  he  Public  et  les  Hommes  de 
Lettres  en  Angleterre  au  XVIIIe  Steele  of  the  late 
M.  Alexandre  Beljame  of  the  Sorbonne — are  already 
of  distant  date.  But  during  the  last  two  decades  the 
appearance  of  similar  productions  has  been  more 
recurrent  and  more  marked.  From  one  eminent 
writer  alone — M.  J.- J.  Jusserand — we  have  received 
an  entire  series  of  studies  of  exceptional  charm, 
variety,  and  accomplishment.  M.  Felix  Rabbe  has 
given  us  a  sympathetic  analysis  of  Shelley;  M. 
Auguste  Angellier, — himself  a  poet  of  individuality 

153 


154  DE  LIBRIS 

and  distinction, — what  has  been  rightly  described 
as  a  "splendid  work"  on  Burns;1  while  M.  Emile 
Legouis,  in  a  minute  examination  of  "The  Prelude," 
has  contrasted  and  compared  the  orthodox  Words- 
worth of  maturity  with  the  juvenile  semi-atheist  of 
Coleridge.  Travelling  farther  afield,  M.  W.  Thomas 
has  devoted  an  exhaustive  volume  to  Young  of 
the  Night  Thoughts-,  M.  Leon  Morel,  another  to 
Thomson;  and,  incidentally,  a  flood  of  fresh  light 
has  been  thrown  upon  the  birth  and  growth  of 
the  English  Novel  by  the  admirable  Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau  et  les  Origines  du  Cosmopolltisme  Litteraire 
of  the  late  Joseph  Texte — an  investigation  un- 
questionably of  the  ripest  scholarship,  and  the  most 
extended  research.  And  now  once  more  there  are 
signs  that  French  lucidity  and  French  precision 
are  about  to  enter  upon  other  conquests;  and 
we  have  M.  Barbeau's  study  of  a  famous  old 
English  watering-place2 — appropriately  dedicated, 
as  is  another  of  the  books  already  mentioned,  to 
M.  Beljame.3 


1 A  volume  of  Pages  Choisies  de  August e  Angellier,  Prose  et  Vers, 
with  an  Introduction  by  M.  Legouis,  has  recently  (1908)  been  issued  by 
the  Clarendon  Press.  It  contains  lengthy  extracts  from  M.  Angellier's 
study  of  Burns. 

2  Une  Ville  d'Eaux  Anglaise  ou  XVIII*  Steele.  La  Societe  Elegante 
et  Litteraire  a  Bath  sous  la  Reine  Anne  et  sous  les  Georges.  Par  A. 
Barbeau.     Paris,  Picard,    1904. 

3  The  list  grows  apace.  To  the  above,  among  others,  must  now  be 
added  M.  Rene  Huchon's  brilliant  little  essay  on  Mrs.  Montagu,  and  his 
elaborate  study  of  Crabbe,  to  say  nothing  of  M.  Jules  Derocquigny's 
Lamb,   M.   Jules   Douady's   Hazlitt,   and   M.   Joseph   Aynard's   Coleridge. 


A  FRENCH  CRITIC  ON  BATH       155 

At  first  sight,  topography,  even  when  combined 
with  social  sketches,  may  seem  less  suited  to  a 
foreigner  and  an  outsider  than  it  would  be  to  a 
resident  and  a  native.  In  the  attitude  of  the  latter 
to  the  land  in  which  he  lives  or  has  been  born,  there 
is  always  an  inherent  something  of  the  soil  for  which 
even  trained  powers  of  comparison,  and  a  special 
perceptive  faculty,  are  but  imperfect  substitutes. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  visitor  from  over-sea  is,  in 
many  respects,  better  placed  for  observation  than  the 
inhabitant.  He  enjoys  not  a  little — it  has  been  often 
said — of  the  position  of  posterity.  He  takes  in  more 
at  a  glance;  he  leaves  out  less;  he  is  disturbed  by 
no  apprehensions  of  explaining  what  is  obvious,  or 
discovering  what  is  known.  As  a  consequence,  he 
sets  down  much  which,  from  long  familiarity,  an 
indigenous  critic  would  be  disposed  to  discard, 
although  it  might  not  be,  in  itself,  either  uninterest- 
ing or  superfluous.  And  if,  instead  of  dealing  with 
the  present  and  actual,  his  concern  is  with  history 
and  the  past,  his  external  standpoint  becomes  a 
strength  rather  than  a  weakness.  He  can  survey  his 
subject  with  a  detachment  which  is  wholly  favourable 
to  his  project;  and  he  can  give  it,  with  less  difficulty 
than  another,  the  advantages  of  scientific  treatment 
and  an  artistic  setting.  Finally,  if  his  theme  have 
definite  limits — as  for  instance  an  appreciable  begin- 
ning,   middle,    and   end — he   must   be   held  to   be 


156  DE  LIBRIS 

exceptionally  fortunate.  And  this,  either  from  happy 
guessing,  or  sheer  good  luck,  is  M.  Barbeau's  case. 
All  these  conditions  are  present  in  the  annals  of  the 
once  popular  pleasure-resort  of  which  he  has  elected 
to  tell  the  story.  It  arose  gradually ;  it  grew  through 
a  century  of  unexampled  prosperity;  it  sank  again 
to  the  level  of  a  country-town.  If  it  should  ever 
arise  again, — and  it  is  by  no  means  a  ville  morte, — 
it  will  be  in  an  entirely  different  way.  The  particu- 
lar Bath  of  the  eighteenth  century — the  Bath  of 
Queen  Anne  and  the  Georges,  of  Nash  and  Fielding 
and  Sheridan,  of  Anstey  and  Mrs.  Siddons,  of  Wesley 
and  Lady  Huntingdon,  of  Quin  and  Gainsborough 
and  Lawrence  and  a  hundred  others — is  no  more. 
It  is  a  case  of  Fuit  Ilium.  It  has  gone  for  ever ;  and 
can  never  be  revived  in  the  old  circumstances.  To 
borrow  an  apposite  expression  from  M.  Texte,  it  is 
an  organism  whose  evolution  has  accomplished  its 
course. 

M.  Barbeau's  task,  then,  is  very  definitely 
mapped-out  and  circumscribed.  But  he  is  far  too 
good  a  craftsman  to  do  no  more  than  give  a  mere 
panorama  of  that  daily  Bath  programme  which 
King  Nash  and  his  dynasty  ordained  and  established. 
He  goes  back  to  the  origins;  to  the  legend  of  King 
Lear's  leper- father;  to  the  Diary  of  the  too-much- 
neglected  Celia  Fiennes;  to  Pepys1  and  Grammont's 

1  Oddly  enough — if  M.   Barbesu's  index  is  to  be  trusted,  and  it  is  an 


A  FRENCH  CRITIC  ON  BATH      157 

Memoirs;  to  the  days  when  hapless  Catherine  of 
Braganza,  with  the  baleful  "belle  Stewart"  in  her 
train,  made  fruitless  pilgrimage  to  Bladud's  spring  as 
a  remedy  against  sterility.  He  sketches,  with  due 
acknowledgments  to  Goldsmith's  unique  little  book, 
the  biography  of  that  archquack,  poseur,  and  very 
clever  organiser,  Mr.  Richard  Nash,  the  first  real 
Master  of  the  Ceremonies;  and  he  gives  a  full 
account  of  his  followers  and  successors.  He  also 
minutely  relates  the  story  of  Sheridan's  marriage  to 
his  beautiful  "St.  Cecilia,"  Elizabeth  Ann  Linley. 
A  separate  and  very  interesting  chapter  is  allotted  to 
Lady  Huntingdon  and  the  Methodists,  not  without 
levies  from  the  remarkable  Spiritual  Quixote  of  that 
Rev.  Richard  Graves  of  Claverton,  of  whom  an 
excellent  account  was  given  not  long  since  in  Mr. 
W.  H.  Hutton's  suggestive  Burford  Papers.  Other 
chapters  are  occupied  with  Bath  and  its  belles  lettres ; 
with  "Squire  Airworthy"  of  Prior  Park  and  his 
literary  guests,  Pope,  Warburton,  Fielding  and  his 
sister,  etc.;  with  the  historic  Frascati  vase  of  Lady 
Miller  at  Batheaston,  which  stirred  the  ridicule  of 
Horace  Walpole,  and  is  still,  it  is  said,  to  be  seen  in 


unusually  good  one, — he  makes  no  reference  to  Evelyn's  visit  to  Bath. 
But  Evelyn  went  there  in  June,  1654,  bathed  in  the  Cross  Bath,  criticised 
the  "facciata"  of  the  Abbey  Church,  complained  of  the  "narrow,  uneven 
and  unpleasant  streets,"  and  inter-visited  with  the  company  frequenting 
the  place  for  health.  "Among  the  rest  of  the  idle  diversions  of  the  town," 
he  says,  "one  musician  was  famous  for  acting  a  changeling  [idiot  or 
half-wit],  which  indeed  he  personated  strangely."  (Diary,  Globe  edn., 
1908,  p.   1 74-) 


158  DE  LIBRIS 

a  local  park.  The  closing  pages  treat  of  Bath — 
musical,  artistic,  scientific — of  its  gradual  transforma- 
tion as  a  health  resort — of  its  eventual  and  fore- 
doomed decline  and  fall  as  the  one  fashionable 
watering-place,  supreme  and  single,  for  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland. 

But  it  is  needless  to  prolong  analysis.  One's 
only  wonder — as  usual  after  the  event — is  that  what 
has  been  done  so  well  had  never  been  thought  of 
before.  For,  while  M.  Barbeau  is  to  be  congratu- 
lated upon  the  happy  task  he  has  undertaken,  we 
may  also  congratulate  ourselves  that  he  has  per- 
formed it  so  effectively.  His  material  is  admirably 
arranged.  He  has  supported  it  by  copious  notes; 
and  he  has  backed  it  up  by  an  impressive  bibliography 
of  authorities  ancient  and  modern.  This  is  some- 
thing; but  it  is  not  all.1  He  has  done  much  more 
than  this.  He  has  contrived  that,  in  his  picturesque 
and  learned  pages,  the  old  "Queen  of  the  West"  shall 
live  again,  with  its  circling  terraces,  its  grey  stone 
houses  and  ill-paved  streets,  its  crush  of  chairs  and 
chariots,  its  throng  of  smirking,  self-satisfied  prom- 
enaders.  One  seems  to  see  the  clumsy  stage-coaches 
depositing  their  touzled  and  tumbled  inmates,  in 
their  rough  rocklows  and  quaint  travelling  headgear, 
at  the  "Bear"  or  the  "White  Hart,"  after  a  jolting 

*To  the  English  version  (Heinemann,  1904)  an  eighteenth-century 
map  of  Bath,  and  a  number  of  interesting  views  and  portraits  have  been 
added. 


A  FRENCH  CRITIC  ON  BATH      159 

two  or  three  days'  journey  from  Oxford  or  London, 
not  without  the  usual  experiences,  real  and  imaginary, 
of  suspicious-looking  horsemen  at  Hounslow,  or 
masked  "gentlemen  of  the  pad"  on  Claverton 
Down.  One  hears  the  peal  of  five-and-twenty  bells 
which  greets  the  arrival  of  visitors  of  importance; 
and  notes  the  obsequious  and  venal  town-waits  who 
follow  them  to  their  lodgings  in  Gay  Street  or 
Milsom  Street  or  the  Parades, — where  they  will,  no 
doubt,  be  promptly  attended  by  the  Master  of  the 
Ceremonies,  "as  fine  as  fivepence,"  and  a  very 
pretty,  sweet-smelling  gentleman,  to  be  sure,  whether 
his  name  be  Wade  or  Derrick.  Next  day  will 
probably  discover  them  in  chip  hats  and  flannel, 
duly  equipped  with  wooden  bowls  and  bouquets,  at 
the  King's  Bath,  where,  through  a  steaming  atmos- 
phere, you  may  survey  their  artless  manoeuvres  (as 
does  Lydia  Melford  in  Humphry  Clinker)  from  the 
windows  of  the  Pump  Room,  to  which  rallying-place 
they  will  presently  repair  to  drink  the  waters,  in  a 
medley  of  notables  and  notorieties,  members  of 
Parliament,  chaplains  and  led-captains,  Noblemen 
with  ribbons  and  stars,  dove-coloured  Quakers, 
Duchesses,  quacks,  fortune-hunters,  lackeys,  lank- 
haired  Methodists,  Bishops,  and  boarding-school 
misses.  Ferdinand  Count  Fathom  will  be  there,  as 
well  as  my  Lord  Ogleby;  Lady  Bellaston  (and  Mr. 
Thomas  Jones) ;  Geoff ry  Wildgoose  and  Tugwell  the 


160  DE  LIBRIS 

cobbler;  Lismahago  and  Tabitha  Bramble;  the  caustic 
Mrs.  Selwyn  and  the  blushing  Miss  Anville.  Be  cer- 
tain, too,  that,  sooner  or  later,  you  will  encounter  Mrs. 
Candour  and  Lady  Sneerwell,  Sir  Benjamin  Backbite 
and  his  uncle,  Mr.  Crabtree,  for  this  is  their  main 
haunt  and  region — in  fact,  they  were  born  here. 
You  may  follow  this  worshipful  and  piebald  proces- 
sion to  the  Public  Breakfasts  in  the  Spring  Gardens,  to 
the  Toy-shops  behind  the  Church,  to  the  Coffee-houses 
in  Westgate  Street,  to  the  Reading  Rooms  on  the 
Walks,  where,  in  Mr.  James  Leake's  parlour  at  the 
back — if  you  are  lucky — you  may  behold  the  cele- 
brated Mr.  Ralph  Allen  of  Prior  Park,  talking  either 
to  Mr.  Henry  Fielding  or  to  Mr.  Leake's  brother- 
in-law,  Mr.  Samuel  Richardson,  but  never — if  we  are 
correctly  informed — to  both  of  them  together.  Or 
you  may  run  against  Mr.  Christopher  Anstey  of  the 
over-praised  Guide,  walking  arm-in-arm  with  another 
Bathonian,  Mr.  Melmoth,  whose  version  of  Pliny 
was  once  held  to  surpass  its  original.  At  the  Abbey 
— where  there  are  daily  morning  services — you  shall 
listen  to  the  silver  periods  of  Bishop  Hurd,  whom 
his  admirers  call  fondly  "the  Beauty  of  Holiness"; 
at  St.  James's  you  can  attend  the  full-blown  lectures, 
"more  unctuous  than  ever  he  preached,"  of  Bishop 
Beilby  Porteus;  or  you  may  succeed  in  procuring  a 
card  for  a  select  hearing,  at  Edgar  Buildings,  of  Lady 
Huntingdon's    eloquent    chaplain,    Mr.    Whitefield. 


A  FRENCH  CRITIC  ON  BATH      161 

With  the  gathering  shades  of  even,  you  may  pass,  if 
so  minded,  to  Palmer's  Theatre  in  Orchard  Street, 
and  follow  Mrs.  Siddons  acting  Belvidera  in  Otway's 
Venice  Preserv'd  to  the  Pierre  of  that  forgotten  Mr. 
Lee  whom  Fanny  Burney  put  next  to  Garrick;  or 
you  may  join  the  enraptured  audience  whom  Mrs. 
Jordan  is  delighting  with  her  favourite  part  of 
Priscilla  Tomboy  in  The  Romp.  You  may  assist  at 
the  concerts  of  Signor  Venanzio  Rauzzini  and 
Monsieur  La  Motte;  you  may  take  part  in  a  long 
minuet  or  country  dance  at  the  Upper  or  Lower 
Assembly  Rooms,  which  Bunbury  will  caricature; 
you  may  even  lose  a  few  pieces  at  the  green  tables; 
and,  should  you  return  home  late  enough,  may 
watch  a  couple  of  stout  chairmen  at  the  door 
of  the  "Three  Tuns"  in  Stall  Street,  hoisting 
that  seasoned  toper,  Mr.  James  Quin,  into  a  sedan 
after  his  evening's  quantum  of  claret.  What  you 
do  to-day,  you  will  do  to-morrow,  if  the  bad  air 
of  the  Pump  Room  has  not  given  you  a  headache, 
or  the  waters  a  touch  of  vertigo;  and  you  will 
continue  to  do  it  for  a  month  or  six  weeks,  when 
the  lumbering  vehicle  with  the  leathern  straps  and 
crane-necked  springs  will  carry  you  back  again  over 
the  deplorable  roads  ("so  sidelum  and  jumblum"  one 
traveller  calls  them)  to  your  town-house,  or  your 
country-box,  or  your  city-shop  or  chambers,  as  the 
case  may  be.     Here,  in  due  course,  you  will  begin 


i62  DE  LIBRIS 

to  meditate  upon  your  next  excursion  to  The  Bath, 
provided  always  that  you  have  not  dipped  your  estate 
at  "E.O.",  or  been  ruined  by  milliners'  bills; — that 
your  son  has  not  gone  northwards  with  a  sham  Scotch 
heiress,  or  your  daughter  been  married  at  Charlcombe, 
by  private  license,  to  a  pinchbeck  Irish  peer.  For  all 
these  things — however  painful  the  admission — were, 
according  to  the  most  credible  chroniclers,  the  by-no- 
means  infrequent  accompaniment  or  sequel  of  an 
unguarded  sojourn  at  the  old  jigging,  card-playing, 
scandal-loving,  pleasure-seeking  city  in  the  loop  of 
"the  soft-flowing  Avon." 

It  is  an  inordinate  paragraph,  outraging  all  known 
rules  of  composition!  But  then — How  seductive  a 
subject  is  eighteenth-century  Bath ! — and  how  rich  in 
memories  is  M.  Barbeau's  book! 


A  WELCOME  FROM  THE 
"JOHNSON  CLUB" 


»«3 


A  WELCOME  FROM  THE 
"JOHNSON  CLUB" 

To  William  John  Courthope,  March  12,  1903 

When  Pope  came  back  from  Trojan  wars  once  more, 
He  found  a  Bard,  to  meet  him  on  the  shore, 
And  hail  his  advent  with  a  strain  as  clear 
As  e'er  was  sung  by  Byron  or  by  Frere.1 

You,  Sir,  have  travelled  from  no  distant  clime, 

Yet  would  John  Gay  could  welcome  you  in  rhyme; 

And  by  some  fable  not  too  coldly  penned, 

Teach  how  with  judgment  one  may  praise  a  Friend. 

There  is  no  need  that  I  should  tell  in  words 
Your  prowess  from  The  Paradise  of  Birds  f 
No  need  to  show  how  surely  you  have  traced 
The  Life  in  Poetry,  the  Law  in  Taste;3 

1  Alexander  Pope:  his  Safe  Return  from  Troy.  A  Congratulatory  Poem 
on  his  Completing  his  Translation  of  Homer's  Iliad.  (In  ottava  rima.) 
By  Mr.  Gay,  i72o(?).  Frere's  burlesque,  Monks  and  Giants — it  will  be 
remembered — set   the   tune   to    Byron's  Beppo. 

2  The  Paradise  of  Birds,   1870. 

8  Life  in  Poetry,  Law  in  Taste,  two  series  of  Lectures  delivered  in 
Oxford,   1895-1900,   1901. 

165 


166  DE  LIBRIS 

Or  mark  with  what  unwearied  strength  you  wear 
The  weight  that  Warton  found  too  great  to  bear.1 
There  is  no  need  for  this  or  that.    My  plan 
Is  less  to  laud  the  Matter  than  the  Man. 

This  is  my  brief.    We  recognise  in  you 
The  mind  judicial,  the  untroubled  view; 
The  critic  who,  without  pedantic  pose, 
Takes  his  firm  foothold  on  the  thing  he  knows ; 
Who,  free  alike  from  passion  or  pretence, 
Holds  the  good  rule  of  calm  and  common  sense; 
And  be  the  subject  or  perplexed  or  plain, — 
Clear  or  confusing, — is  throughout  urbane, 
Patient,  persuasive,  logical,  precise, 
And  only  hard  to  vanity  and  vice. 

More  I  could  add,  but  brevity  is  best; — 
These  are  our  claims  to  honour  you  as  Guest. 

1A   History  of  English  Poetry,   1895    (in  progress). 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND" 


167 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND" 

At  this  date,  Thackeray's  Esmond  has  passed  from 
the  domain  of  criticism  into  that  securer  region 
where  the  classics,  if  they  do  not  actually  "slumber 
out  their  immortality,"  are  at  least  preserved  from 
profane  intrusion.  This  "noble  story"1 — as  it  was 
called  by  one  of  its  earliest  admirers — is  no  longer, 
in  any  sense,  a  book  "under  review."  The  painful 
student  of  the  past  may  still,  indeed,  with  tape  and 
compass,  question  its  details  and  proportions;  or 
the  quick-fingered  professor  of  paradox,  jauntily 
turning  it  upside-down,  rejoice  in  the  results  of  his 
perverse  dexterity;  but  certain  things  are  now 
established  in  regard  to  it,  which  cannot  be  gainsaid, 
even  by  those  who  assume  the  superfluous  office  of 
anatomising  the  accepted.  In  the  first  place,  if 
Esmond  be  not  the  author's  greatest  work  (and  there 
are  those  who,  like  the  late  Anthony  Trollope, 
would  willingly  give  it  that  rank) ,  it  is  unquestionably 

1  "Never  could  I  have  believed  that  Thackeray,  great  as  his  abilities 
are,  could  have  written  so  noble  a  story  as  Esmond." — Walter  Savage 
Landor,   August   1856. 

169 


170  DE  LIBRIS 

his  greatest  work  in  its  particular  kind,  for  its  sequel, 
The  Virginians,  however  admirable  in  detached 
passages,  is  desultory  and  invertebrate,  while  Denis 
Duval,  of  which  the  promise  was  great,  remains 
unfinished.  With  Vanity  Fair,  the  author's  master- 
piece in  another  manner,  Esmond  cannot  properly 
be  compared,  because  an  imitation  of  the  past  can 
never  compete  in  verisimilitude  or  on  any  satisfactory 
terms  with  a  contemporary  picture.  Nevertheless, 
in  its  successful  reproduction  of  the  tone  of  a  bygone 
epoch,  lies  Esmond's  second  and  incontestable  claim 
to  length  of  days.  Although  fifty  years  and  more 
have  passed  since  it  was  published,  it  is  still  unrivalled 
as  the  typical  example  of  that  class  of  historical 
fiction,  which,  dealing  indiscriminately  with  characters 
real  and  feigned,  develops  them  both  with  equal 
familiarity,  treating  them  each  from  within,  and 
investing  them  impartially  with  a  common  atmosphere 
of  illusion.  No  modern  novel  has  done  this  in  the 
same  way,  nor  with  the  same  good  fortune,  as 
Esmond;  and  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said  on 
this  score.  Even  if — as  always — later  researches 
should  have  revised  our  conception  of  certain  of 
the  real  personages,  the  value  of  the  book  as  an 
imaginative  tour  de  force  is  unimpaired.  Little 
remains  therefore  for  the  gleaner  of  to-day  save 
bibliographical  jottings,  and  neglected  notes  on  its 
first  appearance. 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  171 

In  Thackeray's  work,  the  place  of  The  History  of 
Henry  Esmond,  Esq.,  a  Colonel  in  the  Service  of  Her 
Majesty  Q.  Anne.  Written  by  Himself — lies  midway 
between  his  four  other  principal  books,  Vanity  Fair, 
Pendennis,  The  Newcomes,  and  The  Virginians ;  and 
its  position  serves,  in  a  measure,  to  explain  its  origin. 
In  1848,  after  much  tentative  and  miscellaneous 
production,  of  which  the  value  had  been  but  im- 
perfectly appreciated,  the  author  found  his  fame 
with  the  yellow  numbers  of  Vanity  Fair.  Two 
years  later,  adopting  the  same  serial  form,  came 
Pendennis.  Vanity  Fair  had  been  the  condensation 
of  a  life's  experience;  and  excellent  as  Pendennis 
would  have  seemed  from  any  inferior  hand,  its 
readers  could  not  disguise  from  themselves  that, 
though  showing  no  falling  off  in  other  respects,  it 
drew  to  some  extent  upon  the  old  material.  No 
one  was  readier  than  Thackeray  to  listen  to  a 
whisper  of  this  kind,  or  more  willing  to  believe 
that — as  he  afterwards  told  his  friend  Elwin  concern- 
ing The  Newcomes — "he  had  exhausted  all  the  types 
of  character  with  which  he  was  familiar."  Accord- 
ingly he  began,  for  the  time,  to  turn  his  thoughts  in 
fresh  directions;  and  in  the  year  that  followed  the 
publication  of  Pendennis,  prepared  and  delivered 
in  England  and  Scotland  a  series  of  Lectures  upon 
the  English  Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
With  the  success  of  these  came  the  prompting  for 


1 72  DE  LIBRIS 

a  new  work  of  fiction, — not  to  be  contemporary, 
and  not  to  be  issued  in  parts.  His  studies  for  the 
Humourists  had  saturated  him  with  the  spirit  of  a 
time  to  which — witness  his  novelette  of  Barry 
Lyndon — he  had  always  been  attracted;  and  when 
Mr.  George  Smith  called  on  him  with  a  proposal 
that  he  should  write  a  new  story  for  £1,000,  he  was 
already  well  in  hand  with  Esmond, — an  effort  in 
which,  if  it  were  not  possible  to  invent  new  puppets, 
it  was  at  least  possible  to  provide  fresh  costumes 
and  a  change  of  background.  Begun  in  185 1, 
Esmond  progressed  rapidly,  and  by  the  end  of  May 
1852  it  was  completed.  Owing  to  the  limited 
stock  of  old-cut  type  in  which  it  was  set  up,  its 
three  volumes  passed  but  slowly  through  the  press; 
and  it  was  eventually  issued  at  the  end  of  the  follow- 
ing October,  upon  the  eve  of  the  author's  departure 
to  lecture  in  America.  In  fact,  he  was  waiting  on 
the  pier  for  the  tender  which  was  to  convey  him  to 
the  steamer,  when  he  received  his  bound  copies  from 
the  publisher. 

Mr.  Eyre  Crowe,  A.R.A.,  who  accompanied 
Thackeray  to  the  United  States,  and  had  for  some 
time  previously  been  acting  as  his  "factotum  and 
amanuensis,"  has  recorded  several  interesting  details 
with  regard  to  the  writing  of  Esmond.  To  most 
readers  it  will  be  matter  of  surprise,  and  it  is 
certainly   a   noteworthy   testimony   to    the   author's 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  173 

powers,  that  this  attempt  to  revive  the  language 
and  atmosphere  of  a  vanished  era  was  in  great 
part  dictated.  It  has  even  been  said  that,  like 
Pendennis,  it  was  all  dictated;  but  this  it  seems 
is  a  mistake,  for,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  part  of 
the  manuscript  was  prepared  by  the  author  himself. 
As  he  warmed  to  his  work,  however,  he  often 
reverted  to  the  method  of  oral  composition  which 
had  always  been  most  congenial  to  him,  and  which 
explains  the  easy  colloquialism  of  his  style.  Much 
of  the  "copy"  was  taken  down  by  Mr.  Crowe  in 
a  first-floor  bedroom  of  No.  16  Young  Street, 
Kensington,  the  still-existent  house  where  Vanity 
Fair  had  been  written;  at  the  Bedford  Hotel  in 
Covent  Garden ;  at  the  round  table  in  the  Athenaeum 
library,  and  elsewhere.  "I  write  better  anywhere 
than  at  home," — Thackeray  told  Elwin, — "and  I 
write  less  at  home  than  anywhere."  Sometimes 
author  and  scribe  would  betake  themselves  to  the 
British  Museum,  to  look  up  points  in  connection 
with  Marlborough's  battles,  or  to  rummage  Jacob 
Tonson's  Gazettes  for  the  official  accounts  of 
Wynendael  and  Oudenarde.  The  British  Museum, 
indeed,  was  another  of  Esmond's  birthplaces.  By 
favour  of  Sir  Antonio  Panizzi,  Thackeray  and  his 
assistant,  surrounded  by  their  authorities,  were 
accommodated  in  one  of  the  secluded  galleries.  "I 
sat    down," — says    Mr.    Crowe — "and    wrote    to 


174  DE  LIBRIS 

dictation  the  scathing  sentences  about  the  great 
Marlborough,  the  denouncing  of  Cadogan,  etc.,  etc. 
As  a  curious  instance  of  literary  contagion,  it  may 
be  here  stated  that  I  got  quite  bitten  with  the  ex- 
pressed anger  at  their  misdeeds  against  General 
Webb,  Thackeray's  kinsman  and  ancestor;  and 
that  I  then  looked  upon  Secretary  Cardonnel's 
conduct  with  perfect  loathing.  I  was  quite  delighted 
to  find  his  meannesses  justly  pilloried  in  Esmond's 
pages."  What  rendered  the  situation  more  piquant, 
— Mr.  Crowe  adds, — all  this  took  place  on  the  site 
of  old  Montague  House,  where,  as  Steele's  "Prue" 
says  to  St.  John  in  the  novel,  "you  wretches  go  and 
fight  duels."1 

Those  who  are  willing  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to 
Cambridge,  may,  if  they  please,  inspect  the  very 
passages  which  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  Thackeray's 
secretary.  In  a  special  case  in  the  Library  of  Trinity 
College,  not  far  from  those  which  enclose  the  manu- 
scripts of  Tennyson  and  Milton,  is  the  original  and 
only  manuscript  of  Esmond,  being  in  fact  the  identical 
"copy"  which  was  despatched  to  the  press  of  Messrs. 
Bradbury  and  Evans  at  Whitefriars.  It  makes  two 
large  quarto  volumes,  and  was  presented  to  the 
College  (Esmond's  College!)  in  1888  by  the  author's 
son-in-law,  the  late  Sir  Leslie  Stephen.    It  still  bears 

1  With   Thackeray  in  America,    1893,   p.   4. 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  175 

in  pencil  the  names  of  the  different  compositors  who 
set  up  the  type.  Much  of  it  is  in  Thackeray's  own 
small,  slightly-slanted,  but  oftener  upright  hand,  and 
many  pages  have  hardly  any  corrections.1  His 
custom  was  to  write  on  half-sheets  of  a  rather  large 
notepaper,  and  some  idea  may  be  gathered  of  the 
neat,  minute,  and  regular  script,  when  it  is  added  that 
the  lines  usually  contain  twelve  to  fifteen  words,  and 
that  there  are  frequently  as  many  as  thirty-three  of 
these  lines  to  a  page.  Some  of  the  rest  of  the  "copy" 
is  in  the  handwriting  of  the  author's  daughter,  now 
Lady  Ritchie ;  but  a  considerable  portion  was  penned 
by  Mr.  Eyre  Crowe.  The  oft-quoted  passage  in 
book  ii.  chap.  vi.  about  "bringing  your  sheaves  with 
you,"  was  written  by  Thackeray  himself  almost  as  it 
stands;  so  was  the  sham  Spectator,  hereafter  men- 
tioned, and  most  of  the  chapter  headed  "General 
Webb  wins  the  Battle  of  Wynendael."  But  the 
splendid  closing  scene, — "August  1st,  17 14," — is 
almost  wholly  in  the  hand  of  Mr.  Crowe.  It  is 
certainly  a  remarkable  fact  that  work  at  this  level 
should  have  been  thus  improvised,  and  that  nothing, 


1One  is  reminded  of  the  accounts  of  Scott's  "copy."  "Page  after  page 
the  writing  runs  on  exactly  as  you  read  it  in  print" — says  Mr.  Mowbray 
Morris.  "I  was  looking  not  long  ago  at  the  manuscript  of  Kenilworth  in 
the  British  Museum,  and  examined  the  end  with  particular  care,  thinking 
that  the  wonderful  scene  of  Amy  Robsart's  death  must  surely  have  cost 
him  some  labour.  They  were  the  cleanest  pages  in  the  volume:  I  do  not 
think  there  was  a  sentence  altered  or  added  in  the  whole  chapter" 
(Lecture  at  Eton,  Macmillan's  Magazine  (1889),  lx.   pp.   158-9). 


176  DE  LIBRIS 

as  we  are  credibly  informed,  should  have  been  before 
committed  to  paper.1 

When  Esmond  first  made  its  appearance  in  October 
1852,  it  was  not  without  distinguished  and  even 
formidable  competitors.  Bleak  House  had  reached 
its  eighth  number;  and  Bulwer  was  running  My 
Novel  in  Blackwood.  In  Eraser,  Kingsley  was  bring- 
ing out  Hypatia ;  and  Whyte  Melville  was  preluding 
with  Digby  Grand.  Charlotte  Bronte  must  have 
been  getting  ready  Villette  for  the  press;  and 
Tennyson — undeterred  by  the  fact  that  his  hero  had 
already  been  "dirged"  by  the  indefatigable  Tupper — 
was  busy  with  his  Ode  on  the  Death  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington.2  The  critics  of  the  time  were  possibly 
embarrassed  with  this  wealth  of  talent,  for  they  were 
not,  at  the  outset,  immoderately  enthusiastic  over 
the  new  arrival.  The  Athenaum  was  by  no  means 
laudatory.  Esmond  "harped  upon  the  same  string"; 
"wanted  vital  heat";  "touched  no  fresh  fount  of 
thought";    "introduced   no   novel    forms  of  life"; 

1  "The  sentences" — Mr.  Crowe  told  a  member  of  the  Athenaeum,  when 
speaking  of  his  task — "came  out  glibly  as  he  [Thackeray]  paced  the  room." 
This  is  the  more  singular  when  contrasted  with  the  slow  elaboration  of  the 
Balzac  and  Flaubert  school.  No  doubt  Thackeray  must  often  have  arranged 
in  his  mind  precisely  much  that  he  meant  to  say.  Such  seems  indeed  to 
have  been  his  habit.  The  late  Mr.  Locker  Lampson  informed  the  writer 
of  this  paper  that  once,  when  he  met  the  author  of  Esmond  in  the  Green 
Park,  Thackeray  gently  begged  to  be  allowed  to  walk  alone,  as  he  had 
some  verses  in  his  head  which  he  was  finishing.  They  were  those  which 
afterwards  appeared  in  the  Cornhill  for  January  1867,  under  the  title  of 
Mrs.  Katherine's  Lantern. 

aThe  Duke  died  14th  Sept  1852. 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  177 

and  so  forth.  But  the  Spectator,  in  a  charming 
greeting  from  George  Brimley  (since  included  in  his 
Essays) ,  placed  the  book,  as  a  work  of  art,  even  above 
Vanity  Fair  and  Pendennis;  the  "serious  and 
orthodox"  Examiner,  then  under  John  Forster,  was 
politely  judicial;  the  Daily  News  friendly;  and  the 
Morning  Advertiser  enraptured.  The  book,  this  last 
declared,  was  the  "beau-ideal  of  historical  romance." 
On  December  4  a  second  edition  was  announced. 
Then,  on  the  22nd,  came  the  Times.  Whether  the 
Times  remembered  and  resented  a  certain  delightfully 
contemptuous  "Essay  on  Thunder  and  Small  Beer," 
with  which  Thackeray  retorted  to  its  notice  of  The 
Kickleburys  on  the  Rhine  (a  thing  hard  to  believe !)  or 
whether  it  did  not, — its  report  of  Esmond  was  dis- 
tinctly hostile.  In  three  columns,  it  commended 
little  but  the  character  of  Marlborough,  and  the 
writer's  "incomparably  easy  and  unforced  style." 
Thackeray  thought  that  it  had  "absolutely  stopped" 
the  sale.  But  this  seems  inconsistent  with  the  fact 
that  the  publisher  sent  him  a  supplementary  cheque 
for  £250  on  account  of  Esmond's  success. 

Another  reason  which  may  have  tended  to  slacken 
— not  to  stop — the  sale,  is  also  suggested  by  the  author 
himself.  This  was  the  growing  popularity  of  My 
Novel  and  Villette.  And  Miss  Bronte's  book  calls  to 
mind  the  fact  that  she  was  among  the  earliest  readers 
of  Esmond,  the  first  two  volumes  of  which  were  sent 


178  DE  LIBRIS 

to  her  in  manuscript  by  George  Smith.  She  read  it, 
she  tells  him,  with  "as  much  ire  and  sorrow  as  grati- 
tude and  admiration,"  marvelling  at  its  mastery  of 
reconstruction, — hating  its  satire, — its  injustice  to 
women.  How  could  Lady  Castlewood  peep  through 
a  keyhole,  listen  at  a  door,  and  be  jealous  of  a  boy 
and  a  milkmaid !  There  was  too  much  political  and 
religious  intrigue — she  thought.  Nevertheless  she 
said  (this  was  in  February  1852,  speaking  of  vol.  i.) 
the  author  might  "yet  make  it  the  best  he  had  ever 
written."  In  March  she  had  seen  the  second  volume. 
The  character  of  Marlborough  (here  she  anticipated 
the  Times)  was  a  "masterly  piece  of  writing."  But 
there  was  "too  little  story."  The  final  volume,  by 
her  own  request,  she  received  in  print.  It  possessed, 
in  her  opinion,  the  "most  sparkle,  impetus,  and 
interest."  "I  hold,"  she  wrote  to  Mr.  Smith,  "that 
a  work  of  fiction  ought  to  be  a  work  of  creation: 
that  the  real  should  be  sparingly  introduced  in  pages 
dedicated  to  the  ideal"  In  a  later  letter  she  gives 
high  praise  to  the  complex  conception  of  Beatrix, 
traversing  incidentally  the  absurd  accusation  of  one  of 
the  papers  that  she  resembled  Blanche  Amory  [the 
Aihenaum  and  Examiner,  it  may  be  noted,  regarded 
her  as  "another  Becky"].  "To  me,"  Miss  Bronte 
exclaims,  "they  are  about  as  identical  as  a  weasel  and 
a  royal  tigress  of  Bengal;  both  the  latter  are  quad- 
rupeds,  both   the   former   women."     These    frank 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  179 

comments  of  a  fervent  but  thoroughly  honest  admirer, 
are  of  genuine  interest.  When  the  book  was 
published,  Thackeray  himself  sent  her  a  copy  with 
his  "grateful  regards,"  and  it  must  have  been  of  this 
that  she  wrote  to  Mr.  Smith  on  November  3, — 
"Colonel  Henry  Esmond  is  just  arrived.  He  looks 
very  antique  and  distinguished  in  his  Queen  Anne's 
garb;  the  periwig,  sword,  lace,  and  ruffles  are  very 
well  represented  by  the  old  Spectator  type."1 

One  of  the  points  on  which  Miss  Bronte  does  not 
touch, — at  all  events  does  not  touch  in  those 
portions  of  her  correspondence  which  have  been 
printed, — is  the  marriage  with  which  Esmond  closes. 
Upon  this  event  it  would  have  been  highly  instructive 
to  have  had  her  views,  especially  as  it  appears  to 
have  greatly  exercised  her  contemporaries,  the  first 
reviewers.  It  was  the  gravamen  of  the  Times  indict- 
ment; to  the  critic  of  Fraser  it  was  highly  objection- 
able; and  the  Examiner  regarded  it  as  "incredible." 
Why  it  was  "incredible"  that  a  man  should  marry 
a  woman  seven  years  older  than  himself,  to  whom  he 
had  already  proposed  once  in  vol.  ii.,  and  of  whose 
youthful  appearance  we  are  continually  reminded 
("she  looks  the  sister  of  her  daughter"  says  the 
old  Dowager  at  Chelsea) ,  is  certainly  not  superficially 
obvious.     Nor  was  it  obvious  to  Lady  Castlewood's 

1  Mr.  Clement  Snorter's  Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  Circle,  1896,  p.  403  5 
and  Gaskell's  Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte",  1900,  pp.  561  et  seq. 


180  DE  LIBRIS 

children.  "Mother's  in  love  with  you, — yes,  I  think 
mother's  in  love  with  you,"  says  downright  Frank 
Esmond;  the  only  impediment  in  his  eyes  being  the 
bar  sinister,  as  yet  unremoved.  And  Miss  Beatrix 
herself,  in  vol.  iii.,  is  even  more  roundly  explicit. 
"As  for  you,"  she  tells  Esmond,  "you  want  a 
woman  to  bring  your  slippers  and  cap,  and  to  sit  at 
your  feet,  and  cry  'O  caro!  O  bravo!'  whilst  you 
read  your  Shakespeares,  and  Miltons,  and  stuff" 
[which  shows  that  she  herself  had  read  Swift's  Grand 
Question  Debated'].  "Mamma  would  have  been  the 
wife  for  you,  had  you  been  a  little  older,  though  you 
look  ten  years  older  than  she  does."  "You  do,  you 
glum-faced,  blue-bearded,  little  old  man!"  adds  this 
very  imperious  and  free-spoken  young  lady.  The 
situation  is,  no  doubt,  at  times  extremely  difficult, 
and  naturally  requires  consummate  skill  in  the 
treatment.  But  if  these  things  and  others  signify 
anything  to  an  intelligent  reader,  they  signify  that 
the  author,  if  he  had  not  his  end  steadily  in  view, 
knew  perfectly  well  that  his  story  was  tending  in  one 
direction.  There  will  probably  always  be  some 
diversity  of  opinion  in  the  matter;  but  the  majority 
of  us  have  accepted  Thackeray's  solution,  and  have 
dropped  out  of  sight  that  hint  of  undesirable  rivalry, 
which  so  troubled  the  precisians  of  the  early  Victorian 
age.  To  those  who  read  Esmond  now,  noting  care- 
fully the  almost  imperceptible  transformation  of  the 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  181 

motives  on  either  side,  as  developed  by  the  evolution 
of  the  story,  the  union  of  the  hero  and  heroine  at 
the  end  must  appear  not  only  credible  but  pre- 
ordained. And  that  the  gradual  progress  towards 
this  foregone  conclusion  is  handled  with  unfailing 
tact  and  skill,  there  can  surely  be  no  question.1 

Of  the  historical  portraits  in  the  book,  the  interest 
has,  perhaps,  at  this  date,  a  little  paled.  Not  that 
they  are  one  whit  less  vigorously  alive  than  when  the- 
author  first  put  them  in  motion;  but  they  have 
suffered  from  the  very  attention  which  Esmond  and 
The  Humourists  have  directed  to  the  study  of  the 
originals.  The  picture  of  Marlborough  is  still  as 
effective  as  when  it  was  first  proclaimed  to  be  good 
enough  for  the  brush  of  Saint-Simon.  But  Thackeray 
himself  confessed  to  a  family  prejudice  against  the 
hero  of  Blenheim,  and  later  artists  have  considerably 
readjusted  the  likeness.  Nor  in  all  probability  would 
the  latest  biographer  of  Bolingbroke  endorse  that  pre- 
sentment. In  the  purely  literary  figures,  Thackeray 
naturally  followed  the  Lectures,  and  is  consequently 
open  to  the  same  criticisms  as  have  been  offered  on 
those  performances.  The  Swift  of  The  Humourists, 
modelled  on  Macaulay,  was  never  accepted  from  the 

1  Thackeray's  own  explanation  was  more  characteristic  than  convincing. 
"Why  did  you" — said  once  to  him  impetuous  Mrs.  John  Brown  of  Edin- 
burgh— "Why  did  you  make  Esmond  marry  that  old  woman?"  "My  dear 
lady,"  he  replied,  "it  was  not  I  who  married  them.  They  married  them- 
selves." {Dr.  John  Brown,  by  the  late  John  Taylor  Brown,  1903, 
pp.  96-7.) 


182  DE  LIBRIS 

first;  and  it  has  not  been  accepted  in  the  novel, 
or  by  subsequent  writers  from  Forster  onwards.1 
Addison  has  been  less  studied;  and  his  likeness  has 
consequently  been  less  questioned.  Concerning 
Steele  there  has  been  rather  more  discussion.  That 
Thackeray's  sketch  is  very  vivid,  very  human,  and 
in  most  essentials,  hard  to  disprove,  must  be  granted. 
But  it  is  obviously  conceived  under  the  domination 
of  the  "poor  Dick"  of  Addison,  and  dwells  far  too 
persistently  upon  Steele's  frailer  and  more  fallible 
aspect.  No  one  would  believe  that  the  flushed 
personage  in  the  full-bottomed  periwig,  who  hic- 
cups Addison's  Campaign  in  the  Haymarket  garret, 
or  the  fuddled  victim  of  "Prue's"  curtain  lecture  at 
Hampton,  ranked,  at  the  date  of  the  story,  far  higher 
than  Addison  as  a  writer,  and  that  he  was,  in  spite 
of  his  faults,  not  only  a  kindly  gentleman  and  scholar, 
but  a  philanthropist,  a  staunch  patriot,  and  a  con- 
sistent politician.  Probably  the  author  of  Esmond 
considered  that,  in  a  mixed  character,  to  be  intro- 
duced incidentally,  and  exhibited  naturally  "in  the 
quotidian  undress  and  relaxation  of  his  mind"    (as 


1  Thackeray  heartily  disliked  Swift,  and  said  so.  "As  for  Swift,  you 
haven't  made  me  alter  my  opinion" — he  replied  to  Hannay's  remonstrances. 
This  feeling  was  intensified  by  the  belief  that  Swift,  as  a  clergyman,  was 
insincere.  "Of  course," — he  wrote  in  September,  1851,  in  a  letter  now  in 
the  British  Museum, — "any  man  is  welcome  to  believe  as  he  likes  for  me 
except  a  parson:  and  I  can't  help  looking  upon  Swift  and  Sterne  as  a 
couple  of  traitors  and  renegades  .  .  .  with  a  scornful  pity  for  them  in 
spite  of  all  their  genius  and  greatness." 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  183 

Lamb  says),  anything  like  biographical  big  drum 
should  be  deprecated.  This  is,  at  least,  the  im- 
pression left  on  us  by  an  anecdote  told  by  Elwin. 
He  says  that  Thackeray,  talking  to  him  once  about 
The  Virginians,  which  was  then  appearing,  announced 
that  he  meant,  among  other  people,  to  bring  in 
Goldsmith,  "representing  him  as  he  really  was,  a 
little,  shabby,  mean,  shuffling  Irishman."  These 
are  given  as  Thackeray's  actual  words.  If  so,  they 
do  not  show  the  side  of  Goldsmith  which  is  shown 
in  the  last  lecture  of  The  Humourists.1 

But  although,  with  our  rectified  information,  we 
may  except  against  the  picture  of  Steele  as  a  man,  we 
can  scarcely  cavil  at  the  reproduction  of  his  manner 
as  a  writer.  Even  when  Thackeray  was  a  boy  at 
Charterhouse,  his  imitative  faculty  had  been  excep- 
tional; and  he  displayed  it  triumphantly  in  his 
maturity  by  those  Novels  by  Eminent  Hands  in  which 
the  authors  chosen  are  at  once  caricatured  and 
criticised.  The  thing  is  more  than  the  gift  of 
parody;  it  amounts  (as  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  has 
rightly  said)  to  positive  forgery.  It  is  present  in  all 
his  works,  in  stray  letters  and  detached  passages.    In 


1  Some  XVIII.  Century  Men  of  Letters,  1902,  i.  187.  The  intention 
was  never  carried  out.  In  The  King  over  the  Water,  1908,  Miss  A. 
Shield  and  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  have  recently  examined  another  portrait 
in  Esmond, — that  of  the  Chevalier  de  St.  George, — not  without  injury  to 
its  historical  veracity.  In  these  matters,  Mr.  Lang — like  Rob  Roy — is  on 
his  native  heath;  and  it  is  only  necessary  to  refer  the  reader  to  this 
highly  interesting  study. 


1 84  DE  LIBRIS 

its  simplest  form  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  stiff,  circum- 
stantial report  of  the  seconds  in  the  duel  at  Boulogne  in 
Denis  Duval ;  and  in  the  missive  in  barbarous  French 
of  the  Dowager  Viscountess  Castlewood1 — a  letter 
which  only  requires  the  sprawling,  childish  script  to 
make  it  an  exact  facsimile  of  one  of  the  epistolary 
efforts  of  that  "baby-faced"  Caroline  beauty  who 
was  accustomed  to  sign  herself  "L  duchesse  de 
Portsmouth"  It  is  better  still  in  the  letter  from 
Walpole  to  General  Conway  in  chap.  xl.  of  The 
Virginians,  which  is  perfect,  even  to  the  indifferent 
pun  of  sleepy  (and  overrated)  George  Selwyn.  But 
the  crown  and  top  of  these  pastiches  is  certainly  the 
delightful  paper,  which  pretends  to  be  No.  341 
of  the  Spectator  for  All  Fools'  Day,  17 12,  in  which 
Colonel  Esmond  treats  "Mistress  Jocasta-Beatrix," 
to  what,  in  the  parlance  of  the  time,  was  decidedly  a 
"bite."2  Here  Thackeray  has  borrowed  not  only 
Steele's  voice,  but  his  very  trick  of  speech.  It  is, 
however,  a  fresh  instance  of  the  "tangled  web  we 
weave,  When  first  we  practise  to  deceive,"  that 
although  this  pseudo-Spectator  is  stated  to  have  been 
printed  "exactly  as  those  famous  journals  were 
printed"  for  eighteenth-century  breakfast-tables,  it 
could  hardly,  owing  to  one  microscopic  detail,  have 
deceived  the  contemporary  elect.  For  Mr.  Esmond, 
to  his  very  apposite  Latin  epigraph,  unluckily  appended 

1  Esmond,  Book  ii.  chap.  ii.  2  lb.  Book  Hi.  chap.  Hi. 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  185 

an  English  translation, — a  concession  to  the  country 
gentlemen  from  which  both  Addison  and  Steele 
deliberately  abstained,  holding  that  their  distinctive 
mottoes  were  (in  Addison's  own  phrase)  "words  to 
the  wise,"  of  no  concern  to  unlearned  persons.1 

This  very  minute  trifle  emphasises  the  pitfalls  of 
would-be  perfect  imitation.  But  it  also  serves  to 
bring  us  finally  to  the  vocabulary  of  Esmond.  As  to 
this,  extravagant  pretensions  have  sometimes  been 
advanced.  It  has  been  asserted,  for  instance,  by  a 
high  journalistic  authority,  that  "no  man,  woman, 
or  child  in  Esmond,  ever  says  anything  that  he  or  she 
might  not  have  said  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne." 
This  is  one  of  those  extreme  utterances  in  which 
enthusiasm,  losing  its  head,  invites  contradiction. 
Thackeray  professedly  "copied  the  language  of 
Queen  Anne," — he  says  so  in  his  dedication  to  Lord 
Ashburton;  but  he  himself  would  certainly  never 
have  put  forward  so  comprehensive  a  claim  as  the 
above.  There  is  no  doubt  a  story  that  he  challenged 
Mr.  Lowell  (who  was  his  fellow-passenger  to  America 
on  the  Canada)  to  point  out  in  Esmond  a  word  which 
had  not  been  used  in  the  early  eighteenth  century; 
and  that  the  author  of  The  Biglow  Papers  promptly 
discovered  such  a  word.  But  even  if  the  anecdote 
be  not  well-invented,  the  invitation  must  have  been 
more  jest  than  earnest.     For  none  knew  better  than 

1  Spectator,   No.    221,   November    13,    1711. 


1 86  DE  LIBRIS 

Thackeray  that  these  barren  triumphs  of  wording  be- 
long to  ingenuity  rather  than  genius,  being  exercises 
altogether  in  the  taste  of  the  Persian  poet  who  left 
out  all  the  A's  (as  well  as  the  poetry)  in  his  verses, 
or  of  that  other  French  funambulist  whose  sonnet  in 
honour  of  Anne  de  Montaut  was  an  acrostic,  a 
mesostic,  a  St.  Andrew's  Cross,  a  lozenge, — every- 
thing, in  short,  but  a  sonnet.  What  Thackeray 
endeavoured  after  when  "copying  the  language  of 
Queen  Anne,"  and  succeeded  in  attaining,  was  the 
spirit  and  tone  of  the  time.  It  was  not  pedantic 
philology  at  which  he  aimed,  though  he  did  not 
disdain  occasional  picturesque  archaisms,  such  as 
"yatches"  for  "yachts,"  or  despise  the  artful  aid 
of  terminal  k's,  long  s's,  and  old-cut  type.  Con- 
sequently, as  was  years  ago  pointed  out  by  Fitzedward 
Hall  (whose  manifest  prejudice  against  Thackeray  as 
a  writer  should  not  blind  us  in  a  matter  of  fact), 
it  is  not  difficult  to  detect  many  expressions  in  the 
memoirs  of  Queen  Anne's  Colonel  which  could  never 
have  been  employed  until  Her  Majesty  had  long 
been  "quietly  inurned."  What  is  more, — if  we 
mistake  not, — the  author  of  Esmond  sometimes  re- 
frained from  using  an  actual  eighteenth-century  word, 
even  in  a  quotation,  when  his  instinct  told  him  it 
was  not  expedient  to  do  so.  In  the  original  of  that 
well-known  anecdote  of  Steele  beside  his  father's 
coffin,   in    Tatler  No.    181,  reproduced  in  book  i. 


THACKERAY'S  "ESMOND"  187 

chap.  vi.  of  the  novel,  Steele  says,  "My  mother 
catched  me  in  her  arms."  "Catched"  is  good 
enough  eighteenth-century  for  Johnson  and  Walpole. 
But  Thackeray  made  it  "caught,"  and  "caught" 
it  remains  to  this  day  both  in  Esmond  and  The 
Humourists. 


A  MILTONIC  EXERCISE 


.s9 


A  MILTONIC  EXERCISE 
(tercentenary,  i  608-1 908) 

"Stops  of  various  Quills." — Lycidas 

What  need  of  votive  Verse 

To  strew  thy  Laureat  Herse 
With  that  mix'd  Flora  of  th'  Aonian  Hilll 

Or  Mincian  vocall  Reed, 

That  Cam  and  his  breed, 
When  thine  own  Words  are  burning  in  us  still  ? 

Bard,  Prophet,  Archimage! 

In  this  cash-cradled  Age, 
We  grate  our  scrannel  Musick,  and  we  dote : 

Where  is  the  Strain  unknown, 

Through  Bronze  or  Silver  blown, 
That  thrilPd  the  Welkin  with  thy  woven  Note? 

Yes, — we  are  "selfish  Men" : 

Yet  would  we  once  again 

Might  see  Sabrina  braid  her  amber  Tire ; 

191 


i92  DE  LIBRIS 

Or  watch  the  Comus  Crew 
Sweep  down  the  Glade;  or  view 
Strange-streamer'd  Craft  from  Javan  or  Gadire  \ 

Or  could  we  catch  once  more, 

High  up,  the  Clang  and  Roar 
Of  Angel  conflict, — Angel  overthrow: 

Or,  with  a  World  begun, 

Behold  the  young-ray' d  Sun 
Flame  through  the  Groves  where  the  Four  Rivers  flow ! 

•         ••••••• 

Ay  me,  I  fondly  dream ! 

Only  the  storm-bird's  scream 
Foretells  of  Tempest  in  the  days  to  come; 

Nowhere  is  heard  up-climb 

The  lofty  lyric  Rhyme, 
And  the  "God-gifted  Organ- voice"  is  dumb.1 

1  Written  by  request  for  the  celebration  at  Christ's  College,   Cambridge, 
July   10,   1908. 


FRESH  FACTS  ABOUT  FIELDING 


193 


FRESH  FACTS  ABOUT  FIELDING 

The  general  reader,  as  a  rule,  is  but  moderately 
interested  in  minor  rectifications.  Secure  in  a  conven- 
tional preference  of  the  spirit  to  the  letter,  he  pro- 
fesses to  be  indifferent  whether  the  grandmother  of 
an  exalted  personage  was  a  "Hugginson"  or  a 
"Blenkinsop" ;  and  he  is  equally  careless  as  to  the 
correct  Christian  names  of  his  cousins  and  his  aunts. 
In  the  main,  the  general  reader  is  wise  in  his  genera- 
tion. But  with  the  painful  biographer,  toiling  in 
the  immeasurable  sand  of  thankless  research,  often 
foot-sore  and  dry  of  throat,  these  trivialities  assume 
exaggerated  proportions;  and  to  those  who  remind 
him — as  in  a  cynical  age  he  is  sure  to  be  reminded — 
of  the  infinitesimal  value  of  his  hard-gotten  grains  of 
information,  he  can  only  reply  mournfully,  if  uncon- 
vincingly,  that  fact  is  fact — even  in  matters  of 
mustard-seed.  With  this  prelude,  I  propose  to  set 
down  one  or  two  minute  points  concerning  Henry 
Fielding,  not  yet  comprised  in  any  existing  records  of 
his  career.1 

1  Since  this  v-as  published  in  April  1907,  they  have  been  embodied  in 
an  Appendix  to  my  "Men  of  Letters"  Fielding;  and  used,  to  some  extent, 
for  a  fresh  edition  of  the  Journal  of  a  Voyage  to  Lisbon  ("World's 
Classics"). 

195 


196  DE  LIBRIS 

The  first  relates  to  the  exact  period  of  his 
residence  at  Leyden  University.  His  earliest 
biographer,  Arthur  Murphy,  writing  in  1762,  is 
more  explicit  than  usual  on  this  topic.  "He 
[Fielding],"  says  Murphy,  "went  from  Eton  to 
Leyden,  and  there  continued  to  show  an  eager  thirst 
for  knowledge,  and  to  study  the  civilians  with  a 
remarkable  application  for  about  two  years,  when, 
remittances  failing,  he  was  obliged  to  return  to 
London,  not  then  quite  twenty  years  old"  [i.e.  before 
22nd  April,  1727].  In  1883,  like  my  predecessors, 
I  adopted  this  statement,  for  the  sufficient  reason 
that  I  had  nothing  better  to  put  in  its  place.  And 
Murphy  should  have  been  well-informed.  He  had 
known  Fielding  personally;  he  was  employed  by 
Fielding's  publisher;  and  he  could,  one  would 
imagine,  have  readily  obtained  accurate  data  from 
Fielding's  surviving  sister,  Sarah,  who  was  only  three 
years  younger  than  her  brother,  of  whose  short  life 
(he  died  at  forty-eight)  she  could  scarcely  have 
forgotten  the  particulars.  Murphy's  story,  more- 
over, exactly  fitted  in  with  the  fact,  only  definitely 
made  known  in  June  1883,  that  Fielding,  as  a  youth 
of  eighteen,  had  endeavoured,  in  November  1725  to 
abduct  or  carry  off  his  first  love,  Miss  Sarah  Andrew 
of  Lyme  Regis.  Although  the  lady  was  promptly 
married  to  a  son  of  one  of  her  fluttered  guardians, 
nothing  seemed  more  reasonable  than  to  assume  that 


FRESH  FACTS  ABOUT  FIELDING    197 

the  disappointed  lover  (one  is  sure  he  was  never 
an  heiress-hunter!)  was  despatched  to  the  Dutch 
University  to  keep  him  out  of  mischief.1  But  in 
once  more  examining  Mr.  Keightley's  posthumous 
papers,  kindly  placed  at  my  disposal  by  his  nephew, 
Mr.  Alfred  C.  Lyster,  I  found  a  reference  to  an 
un-noted  article  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine  for 
November,  1863  (from  internal  evidence  I  believe  it 
to  have  been  written  by  James  Hannay),  entitled 
"A  Scotchman  in  Holland."  Visiting  Leyden,  the 
writer  was  permitted  to  inspect  the  University 
Album;  and  he  found,  under  1728,  the  following: — 
"Henricus  Fielding,  Anglus,  Ann.  20.  Stud.  Lit." , 
coupled  with  the  further  detail  that  he  "was  living 
at  the  'Hotel  of  Antwerp.'  "  Except  in  the  item  of 
"Stud.  Lit.",  this  did  not  seem  to  conflict  materially 
with  Murphy's  account,  as  Fielding  was  nominally 
twenty  from  1727  to  1728,  and  small  discrepancies 
must  be  allowed  for. 

Twenty  years  later,  a  fresh  version  of  the  record 
came  to  light.  At  their  tercentenary  festival  in 
1875,  tne  Leyden  University  printed  a  list  of  their 
students  from  their  foundation  to  that  year.  From 
this  Mr.  Edward  Peacock,  F.S.A.,  compiled  in  1883, 
for  the  Index  Society,  an  Index  to  English-Speaking 
Students  who  have  graduated  at  Leyden  University; 
and  at  p.  35  appears  Fielding,  Henricus,  Anglus,  16 

1  "Men  of  Letters"  Fielding,   1907,   Appendix    I. 


198  DE  LIBRIS 

Mart.  1728,  915  (the  last  being  the  column  number 
of  the  list).  This  added  a  month-date,  and  made 
Fielding  a  graduate.  Then,  two  years  ago,  came  yet 
a  third  rendering.  Mr.  A.  E.  H.  Swaen,  writing  in 
The  Modern  Language  Review  for  July  1906,  printed 
the  inscription  in  the  Album  as  follows:  "Febr.  16. 
1728  :  Rectore  Johanne  Wesselio,  Henricus  Fielding, 
Anglus.  20,  L."  Mr.  Swaen  construed  this  to  mean 
that,  on  the  date  named  (which,  it  may  be  observed, 
is  not  Mr.  Peacock's  date),  Fielding,  uaged  twenty, 
was  entered  as  litterarum  studiosus  at  Leyden."  In 
this  case  it  would  follow  that  his  residence  in  Holland 
should  have  come  after  February  16th,  1728;  and 
Mr.  Swaen  went  on  to  conjecture  that,  "as  his 
[Fielding's]  first  play,  Love  in  Several  Masques,  was 
staged  at  Drury  Lane  in  February,  1728,  and  his  next 
play,  The  Temple  Beau,  was  produced  in  January, 
1730,  it  is  not  improbable  that  his  residence  in 
Holland  filled  up  the  interval  or  part  of  it.  Did  the 
profits  of  the  play  [he  proceeded]  perhaps  cover  part 
of  his  travelling  expenses?" 

The  new  complications  imported  into  the  question 
by  this  fresh  aspect  of  it,  will  be  at  once  apparent. 
Up  to  1875  there  had  been  but  one  Fielding  on  the 
Leyden  books;  so  that  all  these  differing  accounts 
were  variations  from  a  single  source.  In  this 
difficulty,  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  enlist  the 
sympathy    of    Mr.  Frederic    Harrison,    who    most 


FRESH  FACTS  ABOUT  FIELDING    199 

kindly  undertook  to  make  inquiries  on  my  behalf 
at  Leyden  University  itself.  In  reply  to  certain 
definite  queries  drawn  up  by  me,  he  obtained  from 
the  distinguished  scholar  and  Professor  of  History, 
Dr.  Pieter  Blok,  the  following  authoritative 
particulars.  The  exact  words  in  the  original  Album 
Academicum  are: — "16  Martii  1728  Henricus 
Fielding,  Anglus,  annor.  20  Litt.  Stud."  He  was 
then  staying  at  the  uCasteel  van  Antwerpen" — as 
related  by  "A  Scotchman  in  Holland."  His  name 
only  occurs  again  in  the  yearly  recensiones  under 
February  22nd,  1729,  as  "Henricus  Fieldingh," 
when  he  was  domiciled  with  one  Jan  Oson.  He 
must  consequently  have  left  Leyden  before  February 
8th,  1730,  February  8th  being  the  birthday  of  the 
University,  after  which  all  students  have  to  be 
annually  registered.  The  entry  in  the  Album  (as 
Mr.  Swaen  affirmed)  is  an  admission  entry;  there 
are  no  leaving  entries.  As  regards  "studying  the 
civilians,"  Fielding  might,  in  those  days,  Dr.  Blok 
explains,  have  had  private  lessons  from  the  pro- 
fessors; but  he  could  not  have  studied  in  the 
University  without  being  on  the  books.  To  sum 
up:  After  producing  Love  in  Several  Masques  at 
Drury  Lane,  probably  on  February  12th,  1728,1 
Fielding  was  admitted  a  "Litt.  Stud."  at  Leyden 
University    on    March    16th;    was    still    there    in 

1  Genest,  iii.    209. 


200  DE  LIBRIS 

February  1729;  and  left  before  February  8th,  1730. 
Murphy  is  therefore  at  fault  in  almost  every 
particular.  Fielding  did  not  go  from  Eton  to 
Leyden;  he  did  not  make  any  recognised  study  of 
the  civilians,  "with  remarkable  application"  or 
otherwise;  and  he  did  not  return  to  London  before 
he  was  twenty.  But  it  is  by  no  means  improbable 
that  the  causa  causans  or  main  reason  for  his 
coming  home  was  the  failure  of  remittances. 

Another  recently  established  fact  is  also  more  or 
less  connected  with  "Mur. — "  as  Johnson  called  him. 
In  his  "Essay"  of  1762,  he  gave  a  highly-coloured 
account  of  Fielding's  first  marriage,  and  of  the 
promptitude  with  which,  assisted  by  yellow  liveries 
and  a  pack  of  hounds,  he  managed  to  make  duck 
and  drake  of  his  wife's  little  fortune.  This  account 
has  now  been  "simply  riddled  in  its  details"  (as  Mr. 
Saintsbury  puts  it)  by  successive  biographers,  the 
last  destructive  critic  being  the  late  Sir  Leslie 
Stephen,  who  plausibly  suggested  that  the  "yellow 
liveries"  (not  the  family  liveries,  be  it  noted!)  were 
simply  a  confused  recollection  of  the  fantastic  pranks 
of  that  other  and  earlier  Beau  Fielding  (Steele's 
"Orlando  the  Fair"),  who  married  the  Duchess  of 
Cleveland  in  1705,  and  was  also  a  Justice  of  the 
Peace  for  Westminster.  One  thing  was  wanting  to 
the  readjustment  of  the  narrative,  and  that  was  the 
precise  date  of  Fielding's  marriage  to  the  beautiful 


FRESH  FACTS  ABOUT  FIELDING   201 

Miss  Cradock  of  Salisbury,  the  original  both  of 
Sophia  Western  and  Amelia  Booth.  By  good 
fortune  this  has  now  been  ascertained.  Lawrence 
gave  the  date  as  1735;  and  Keightley  suggested  the 
spring  of  that  year.  This,  as  Swift  would  say,  was 
near  the  mark,  although  confirmation  has  been  slow 
in  coming.  In  June  1906,  Mr.  Thomas  S.  Bush,  of 
Bath,  announced  in  The  Bath  Chronicle  that  the 
desired  information  was  to  be  found  (not  in  the 
Salisbury  registers  which  had  been  fruitlessly  con- 
sulted, but)  at  the  tiny  church  of  St.  Mary,  Charl- 
combe,  a  secluded  parish  about  one  and  a  half  miles 
north  of  Bath.  Here  is  the  record: — "November 
ye  28,  1734.  Henry  Fielding  of  ye  Parish  of  St. 
James  in  Bath,  Esq.,  and  Charlotte  Cradock,  of  ye 
same  Parish,  spinster,  were  married  by  virtue  of  a 
licence  from  ye  Court  of  Wells."  All  lovers  of 
Fielding  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Mr.  Bush,  whose 
researches,  in  addition,  disclosed  the  fact  that  Sarah 
Fielding,  the  novelist's  third  sister  (as  we  shall  see 
presently),  was  buried,  not  in  Bath  Abbey,  where 
Dr.  John  Hoadly  raised  a  memorial  to  her,  but  "in 
y*  entrance  of  the  Chancel  [of  Charlcombe  Church] 
close  to  ye  Rector's  seat,"  April  14th,  1768.1  Mr. 
Bush's  revelation,   it  may  be  added,  was  made  in 


1  Sarah  Fielding's  epitaph  in  Bath  Abbey  is  often  said  to  have  been 
written  by  Bishop  Benjamin  Hoadly.  In  this  case,  it  must  have  been 
anticipatory  (like  Dr.  Primrose's  on  his  Deborah)  for  the  Bishop  died  in 
1761. 


202  DE  LIBRIS 

connection  with  another  record  of  the  visits  of  the 
novelist  to  the  old  Queen  of  the  West,  a  tablet 
erected  in  June  1906  to  Fielding  and  his  sister  on  the 
wall  of  Yew  Cottage,  now  renovated  as  Widcombe 
Lodge,  Widcombe,  Bath,  where  they  once  resided. 

In  the  last  case  I  have  to  mention,  it  is  but  fair 
to  Murphy  to  admit  that  he  seems  to  have  been 
better  informed  than  those  who  have  succeeded  him. 
Richardson  writes  of  being  uwell  acquainted"  with 
four  of  Fielding's  sisters,  and  both  Lawrence  and 
Keightley  refer  to  a  Catherine  and  an  Ursula,  of 
whom  Keightley,  after  prolonged  enquiries,  could 
obtain  no  tidings.  With  the  help  of  Colonel  W.  F. 
Prideaux,  and  the  kind  offices  of  Mr.  Samuel  Martin 
of  the  Hammersmith  Free  Library,  this  matter  has 
now  been  set  at  rest.  In  1887  Sir  Leslie  Stephen 
had  suggested  to  me  that  Catherine  and  Ursula  were 
most  probably  born  at  Sharpham  Park,  before  the 
Fieldings  moved  to  East  Stour.  This  must  have 
been  the  case,  though  Keightley  had  failed  to  establish 
it.  At  all  events,  Catherine  and  Ursula  must  have 
existed,  for  they  both  died  in  1750.  The  Hammer- 
smith Registers  at  Fulham  record  the  following 
burials : — 

1750  July  9th,  Mrs.  Catherine  Fielding  (sic) 
1750  Nov.  1 2th,  Mrs.  Ursula  Fielding 
1750  [-1]  Feby.  24th,  Mrs.  Beatrice  Fielding 
1753  May  10th,  Louisa,  d.  of  Henry  Fielding,  Esq. 


FRESH  FACTS  ABOUT  FIELDING  203 

The  first  three,  with  Sarah,  make  up  the  "Four 
Worthy  Sisters"  of  the  reprehensible  author  of  that 
"truly  coarse-titled  Tom  Jones"  concerning  which 
Richardson  wrote  shudderingly  in  August  1749  to 
his  young  friends,  Astraea  and  Minerva  Hill.  The 
final  entry  relating  to  Fielding's  little  daughter, 
Louisa,  born  December  3rd,  1752,  makes  it  probable 
that,  in  May,  1753,  he  was  staying  in  the  house  at 
Hammersmith,  then  occupied  by  his  sole  surviving 
sister,  Sarah.  In  the  following  year  (October  8th) 
he  himself  died  at  Lisbon.  There  is  no  better  short 
appreciation  of  his  work  than  Lowell's  lapidary 
lines  for  the  Shire  Hall  at  Taunton, — the  epigraph 
to  the  bust  by  Miss  Margaret  Thomas : 

He  looked  on  naked  nature  unashamed, 

And  saw  the  Sphinx,  now  bestial,  now  divine, 
In  change  and  re-change;  he  nor  praised  nor  blamed, 

But  drew  her  as  he  saw  with  fearless  line. 
Did  he  good  service?     God  must  judge,  not  we! 

Manly  he  was,  and  generous  and  sincere; 
English  in  all,  of  genius  blithely  free: 

Who  loves  a  Man  may  see  his  image  here. 


THE  HAPPY  PRINTER 


205 


THE  HAPPY  PRINTER 

"Hoc  est  vivere." — Martial 

The  Printer's  is  a  happy  lot: 

Alone  of  all  professions, 
No  fateful  smudges  ever  blot 

His  earliest  "impressions." 

The  outgrowth  of  his  youthful  ken 
No  cold  obstruction  fetters; 

He  quickly  learns  the  "types"  of  men, 
And  all  the  world  of  "letters." 

With  "forms"  he  scorns  to  compromise; 

For  him  no  "rule"  has  terrors; 
The  "slips"  he  makes  he  can  "revise" — 

They  are  but  "printers'  errors." 

From  doubtful  questions  of  the  "Press" 

He  wisely  holds  aloof; 

In  all  polemics,  more  or  less, 

His  argument  is  "proof." 
207 


2o8  DE  LIBRIS 

Save  in  their  "case,"  with  High  and  Low 
Small  need  has  he  to  grapple ! 

Without  dissent  he  still  can  go 

To  his  accustomed  "Chapel."1 

From  ills  that  others  scape  or  shirk, 

He  rarely  fails  to  rally; 
For  him,  his  most  "composing"  work 

Is  labour  of  the  "galley." 

Though  ways  be  foul,  and  days  are  dim, 
He  makes  no  lamentation; 

The  primal  "fount"  of  woe  to  him 
Is — want  of  occupation: 

And  when,  at  last,  Time  finds  him  grey 
With  over-close  attention, 

He  solves  the  problem  of  the  day, 
And  gets  an  Old  Age  pension. 


1  This,  derived,  it  is  said,  from  Caxton's  connection  with  Westminster 
Abbey,  is  the  name  given  to  the  meetings  held  by  printers  to  consider  trade 
affairs,  appeals,  etc.    (Printers'  Vocabulary). 


CROSS  READINGS— AND  CALEB 
WHITEFOORD 


209 


CROSS  READINGS— AND  CALEB 
WHITEFOORD 

Towards  the  close  of  the  year  1766 — not  many 
months  after  the  publication  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield 
— there  appeared  in  Mr.  Henry  Sampson  WoodfalPs 
Public  Advertiser,  and  other  newspapers,  a  letter 
addressed  "To  the  Printer,"  and  signed  "Papyrius 
Cursor."  The  name  was  a  real  Roman  name;  but 
in  its  burlesque  applicability  to  the  theme  of  the 
communication,  it  was  as  felicitous  as  Thackeray's 
"Manlius  Pennialinus,"  or  that  "Apollonius 
Curius"  from  whom  Hood  fabled  to  have  borrowed 
the  legend  of  "Lycus  the  Centaur."  The  writer 
of  the  letter  lamented — as  others  have  done 
before  and  since — the  barren  fertility  of  the  news 
sheets  of  his  day.  There  was,  he  contended,  some 
diversion  and  diversity  in  card-playing.  But  as 
for  the  papers,  the  unconnected  occurrences  and 
miscellaneous  advertisements,  the  abrupt  transitions 
from  article  to  article,  without  the  slightest  con- 
nection  between    one    paragraph    and    another — so 

2X1 


212  DE  LIBRIS 

overburdened  and  confused  the  memory  that  when 
one  was  questioned,  it  was  impossible  to  give 
even  a  tolerable  account  of  what  one  had  read. 
The  mind  became  a  jumble  of  "politics,  religion, 
picking  of  pockets,  puffs,  casualties,  deaths,  marriages, 
bankruptcies,  preferments,  resignations,  executions, 
lottery  tickets,  India  bonds,  Scotch  pebbles,  Canada 
bills,  French  chicken  gloves,  auctioneers,  and  quack 
doctors/'  of  all  of  which,  particularly  as  the  pages 
contained  three  columns,  the  bewildered  reader 
could  retain  little  or  nothing.  (One  may  perhaps 
pause  for  a  moment  to  wonder,  seeing  that  Papyrius 
could  contrive  to  extract  so  much  mental  perplexity 
from  Cowper's  "folio  of  four  pages" — he  speaks 
specifically  of  this  form, — what  he  would  have  done 
with  Lloyd's,  or  a  modern  American  Sunday  paper!) 
Coming  later  to  the  point  of  his  epistle,  he  goes  on 
to  explain  that  he  has  hit  upon  a  method  (as  to 
which,  be  it  added,  he  was  not,  as  he  thought,  the 
originator1)  of  making  this  heterogeneous  mass  afford, 
like  cards,  a  "variety  of  entertainment."  By  reading 
the  afore-mentioned  three  columns  horizontally  and 
onwards,  instead  of  vertically  and  downwards  "in 
the  old  trite  vulgar  way,"  it  was  contended  that  much 
mirth  might  observingly  be  distilled  from  the  most 

1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had  been  anticipated  by  a  paper,  No.  40  of 
"little  Harrison's"  spurious  Tatler,  vol.  v.,  where  the  writer  reads  a  news- 
paper "in  a  direct  Line"  .  .  .  "without  Regard  to  the  Distinction  of 
Columns," — which  is  precisely  the  proposal  of  Papyrius. 


CROSS  READINGS  213 

unhopeful  material,  as  "blind  Chance"  frequently 
brought  about  the  oddest  conjunctions,  and  not 
seldom  compelled  sub  juga  aenea  persons  and  things 
the  most  dissimilar  and  discordant.  He  then  went 
on  to  give  a  number  of  examples  in  point,  of 
which  we  select  a  few.  This  was  the  artless  humour 
of  it: — 

"Yesterday  Dr.  Jones  preached  at  St.  James's, 
and  performed  it  with  ease  in  less  than  16  Minutes." 

"Their  R.H.  the  Dukes  of  York  and  Gloucester 
were  bound  over  to  their  good  behaviour." 

"At  noon  her  R.H.  the  Princess  Dowager  was 
married  to  Mr.  Jenkins,  an  eminent  Taylor." 

"Friday  a  poor  blind  man  fell  into  a  saw-pit, 
to  which  he  was  conducted  by  Sir  Clement  Cottrell."1 

"A  certain  Commoner  will  be  created  a  Peer. 
N.B. — No  greater  reward  will  be  offered." 

"John  Wilkes,  Esq.,  set  out  for  France, 
being  charged  with  returning  from  transportation." 

"Last  night  a  most  terrible  fire  broke  out, 
and  the  evening  concluded  with  the  utmost  Festivity." 

"Yesterday  the  new  Lord  Mayor  was  sworn  in, 
and  afterwards  toss'd  and  gored  several  Persons." 

"On  Tuesday  an  address  was  presented ; 
it  happily  miss'd  fire,  and  the  villain  made  off, 
when  the  honour  of  knighthood  was  conferred  on  him 
to  the  great  joy  of  that  noble  family." 

"Escaped  from  the  New  Gaol,  Terence  M'Dermot. 
If  he  will  return,  he  will  be  kindly  received." 

"Colds  caught  at  this  season  are 
The  Companion  to  the  Playhouse." 

1  Master   of  the    Ceremonies. 


2i4  DE  LIBRIS 

"Ready  to  sail  to  the  West  Indies, 
the  Canterbury  Flying  Machine  in  one  day." 

"To  be  sold  to  the  best  Bidder, 
My  Seat  in  Parliament  being  vacated." 

"I  have  long  laboured  under  a  complaint 
For  ready  money  only." 

"Notice  is  hereby  given, 
and  no  Notice  taken." 

And  so  forth,  fully  justifying  the  writer's  motto 
from  Cicero,  De  Finibus:  "Fortnitu  Concur su  hoc 
fieri,  mirum  est."  It  may  seem  that  the  mirthful 
element  is  not  overpowering.  But  "gentle  Dulness 
ever  loves  a  joke";  and  in  1766  this  one,  in 
modern  parlance,  "caught  on."  "Cross  readings" 
had,  moreover,  one  popular  advantage:  like  the 
Limericks  of  Edward  Lear,  they  were  easily  imitated. 
What  is  not  so  intelligible  is,  that  they  seem  to  have 
fascinated  many  people  who  were  assuredly  not  dull. 
Even  Johnson  condescended  to  commend  the  aptness 
of  the  pseudonym,  and  to  speak  of  the  performance 
as  "ingenious  and  diverting."  Horace  Walpole, 
writing  to  Montagu  in  December  1766,  professes  to 
have  laughed  over  them  till  he  cried.  It  was  "the 
newest  piece  of  humour,"  he  declared,  "except  the 
Bath  Guide  [Anstey's],  that  he  had  seen  of  many 
years" ;  and  Goldsmith — Goldsmith,  who  has  been 
charged  with  want  of  sympathy  for  rival  humourists 
— is  reported  by  Northcote  to  have  even  gone  so 
far  as  to  say,  in  a  transport  of  enthusiasm,  that  "it 


CROSS  READINGS  215 

would  have  given  him  more  pleasure  to  have 
been  the  author  of  them  than  of  all  the  works  he 
had  ever  published  of  his  own," — which,  of  course, 
must  be  classed  with  "Dr.  Minor's"  unconsidered 
speeches. 

"Bien  heureux" — to  use  Voltaire's  phrase — is 
he  who  can  laugh  much  at  these  things  now.  As 
Goldsmith  himself  would  have  agreed,  the  jests  of 
one  age  are  not  the  jests  of  another.  But  it  is  a 
little  curious  that,  by  one  of  those  freaks  of  circum- 
stance, or  "fortuitous  concourses,"  there  is  to-day 
generally  included  among  the  very  works  of  Gold- 
smith above  referred  to  something  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  many,  is  conjectured  to  have  been  really 
the  production  of  the  ingenious  compiler  of  the 
"Cross  Readings."  That  compiler  was  one  Caleb 
Whitefoord,  a  well-educated  Scotch  wine-merchant 
and  picture-buyer,  whose  portrait  figures  in  Wilkie's 
"Letter  of  Introduction."  The  friend  of  Benjamin 
Franklin,  who  had  been  his  next-door  neighbour 
at  Craven  Street,  he  became,  in  later  years,  some- 
thing of  a  diplomatist,  since  in  1782-83  he  was 
employed  by  the  Shelburne  administration  in  the 
Paris  negotiation  for  the  Treaty  of  Versailles.  But 
at  the  date  of  the  "Cross  Readings"  he  was  mainly 
what  Burke,  speaking  contemptuously  of  his  status 
as  a  plenipotentiary,  styled  a  "diseur  de  bons  mots"; 
and  he  was  for  this  reason  included  among  those 


216  DE  LIBRIS 

"most  distinguished  Wits  of  the  Metropolis,"  who, 
following  Garrick's  lead  in  1774,  diverted  them- 
selves at  the  St.  James's  Coffee-house  by  composing 
the  epitaphs  on  Goldsmith  which  gave  rise  to  the 
incomparable  gallery  entitled  Retaliation.  In  the 
first  four  editions  of  that  posthumous  poem  there  is 
no  mention  of  Whitefoord,  who,  either  at,  or  soon 
after  the  first  meeting  above  referred  to,  had  written 
an  epitaph  on  Goldsmith,  two-thirds  of  which  are 
declared  to  be  "unfit  for  publication. m  But  when 
the  fourth  edition  of  Retaliation  had  been  printed,  an 
epitaph  on  Whitefoord  was  forwarded  to  the  pub- 
lisher, George  Kearsly,  by  "a  friend  of  the  late 
Doctor  Goldsmith,  with  an  intimation  that  it  was 
a  transcript  of  an  original  in  "the  Doctor's  own. 
handwriting."  "It  is  a  striking  proof  of  Doctor 
Goldsmith's  good-nature,"  said  the  sender,  glancing, 
we  may  suppose,  at  Whitefoord's  performance.  "I 
saw  this  sheet  of  paper  in  the  Doctor's  room,  five 
or  six  days  before  he  died;  and,  as  I  had  got  all  the 
other  Epitaphs,  I  asked  if  I  might  take  it.  "In 
truth  you  may,  my  Boy,  (replied  he)  for  it  will  be  of 
no  use  to  me  where  I  am  going" 


1Hewins's   Whitefoord  Papers,    1898,  p.   xxvii.   n.,   where  the   first   four 
lines  of  twelve  are  given.     They  run — 

Noll  Goldsmith  lies  here,  as   famous  for  writing 

As  his  namesake   old    Noll   was    for   praying  and  fighting. 

In  friends  he  was  rich,  tho'   not  loaded  with  Pelf; 

He  spoke   well  of  them,  and  thought   well  of  himself. 


CROSS  READINGS  217 

The  lines — there  are  twenty-eight  of  them — 
speak  of  Whitefoord  as,  among  other  things,  a 

Rare  compound  of  oddity,  frolic  and  fun! 
Who  relish'd  a  joke,  and  rejoic'd  in  a  pun;1 
Whose  temper  was  generous,  open,  sincere; 
A  stranger  to  flatt'ry,  a  stranger  to  fear; 
Who  scatter'd  around  wit  and  humour  at  will, 
Whose  daily  bons  mots  half  a  column  would  fill; 
A  Scotchman,  from  pride  and  from  prejudice  free, 
A  scholar,  yet  surely  no  pedant  was  he. 

What  pity,  alas!    that  so  lib'ral  a  mind 

Should  so  long  be  to  news-paper-essays  confin'd! 

Who  perhaps  to  the  summit  of  science  could  soar, 

Yet  content  "if  the  table  he  set  on  a  roar"; 

Whose  talents  to  fill  any  station  were  fit, 

Yet  happy  if  Woodfall  confess'd  him  a  wit. 

The  "servile  herd"  of  "tame  imitators'1 — the 
"news-paper  witlings"  and  "pert  scribbling  folks1' — 
were  further  requested  to  visit  his  tomb — 

To  deck  it,  bring  with  you  festoons  of  the  vine, 
And  copious  libations  bestow  on  his  shrine; 
Then  strew  all  around  it   (you  can  do  no  less) 
Cross-readings,  Ship-news,  and  Mistakes  of  the  Press. 

It  is  not  recorded  that  Kearsly  ever  saw  this  in 
Goldsmith's  "own  hand-writing";  the  sender's  name 
has  never  been  made  known ;  and — as  above  observed 


1  "Mr.  W." — says  a  note  to  the  fifth  edition — "is  so  notorious  a  punster, 
that  Doctor  Goldsmith  used  to  say,  it  was  impossible  to  keep  him  company, 
without  being  infected  with  the  itch  of  punning."  Yet  Johnson  endured 
him,  and  apparently  liked  him,  though  he  had  the  additional  disqualification 
of  being  a  North  Briton. 


218  DE  LIBRIS 

— it  has  been  more  than  suspected  that  Whitefoord 
concocted  it  himself,  or  procured  its  concoction.  As 
J.  T.  Smith  points  out  in  Nollekens  and  his  Times, 
1828,  i.  337-8,  Whitefoord  was  scarcely  important 
enough  to  deserve  a  far  longer  epitaph  than  those 
bestowed  on  Burke  and  Reynolds;  and  Goldsmith, 
it  may  be  added — as  we  know  in  the  case  of  Beattie 
and  Voltaire — was  not  in  the  habit  of  confusing 
small  men  with  great.  Moreover,  the  lines  would 
(as  intimated  by  the  person  who  sent  them  to 
Kearsly)  be  an  extraordinary  generous  return  for 
an  epitaph  "unfit  for  publication,"  by  which,  it  is 
stated,  Goldsmith  had  been  greatly  disturbed.  Prior 
had  his  misgivings,  particularly  in  respect  to  the 
words  attributed  to  Goldsmith  on  his  death-bed; 
and  Forster  allows  that  to  him  the  story  of  the 
so-called  "Postscript"  has  "a  somewhat  doubtful 
look."    To  which  we  unhesitatingly  say — ditto. 

Whitefoord,  it  seems,  was  in  the  habit  of  printing 
his  "Cross  Readings"  on  small  single  sheets,  and 
circulating  them  among  his  friends.  "Rainy-day 
Smith"  had  a  specimen  of  these.  In  one  of  White- 
foord's  letters  he  professes  to  claim  that  his  jeux 
df  esprit  contained  more  than  met  the  eye.  "I  have 
always,"  he  wrote,  "endeavour'd  to  make  such 
changes  [of  Ministry]  a  matter  of  Laughter  [rather] 
than  of  serious  concern  to  the  People,  by  turning 
them  into  horse  Races,  Ship  News,  &c,  and  these 


CROSS  READINGS  219 

Pieces  have  generally  succeeded  beyond  my  most 
sanguine  Expectations,  altW  they  were  not  seasoned 
with  private  Scandal  or  personal  Abuse,  of  which 
our  good  neighbours  of  South  Britain  are  realy 
too  fond."  In  Debrett's  New  Foundling  Hospital 
for  Wit,  new  edition,  1784,  there  are  several  of  his 
productions,  including  a  letter  to  Woodfall  "On 
the  Errors  of  the  Press,"  of  which  the  following 
may  serve  as  a  sample:  "I  have  known  you  turn  a 
matter  of  hearsay,  into  a  matter  of  heresy;  Damon 
into  a  daemon;  a  delicious  girl,  into  a  delirious  girl; 
the  comic  muse,  into  a  comic  mouse;  a  Jewish 
Rabbi,  into  a  Jewish  Rabbit;  and  when  a  corre- 
spondent, lamenting  the  corruption  of  the  times, 
exclaimed  'O  Mores!'  you  made  him  cry,  'O 
Moses!'"  And  here  is  an  extract  from  another 
paper  which  explains  the  aforegoing  reference  to 
"horse  Races":  "1763 — Spring  Meeting.  .  .  Mr. 
Wilkes's  horse,  Liberty,  rode  by  himself,  took  the 
lead  at  starting;  but  being  pushed  hard  by  Mr. 
Bishop's  black  gelding,  Privilege,  fell  down  at  the 
Devil's  Ditch,  and  was  no  where."  The  "Ship 
News"  is  on  the  same  pattern.  "August  25  [1765] 
We  hear  that  his  Majesty's  Ship  Newcastle  will  soon 
have  a  new  figure-head,  the  old  one  being  almost 
worn  out." 


THE  LAST  PROOF 


221 


THE  LAST  PROOF 

AN  EPILOGUE  TO  ANY  BOOK 
"Hie  Finis  chartaeque  viaeque" 

"Finis  at  last — the  end,  the  End,  the  End! 

No  more  of  paragraphs  to  prune  or  mend ; 

No  more  blue  pencil,  with  its  ruthless  line, 

To  blot  the  phrase  'particularly  fine1 ; 

No  more  of  'slips,'  and  'galleys,'  and  'revises,' 

Of  words  'transmogrified,'  and  'wild  surmises'; 

No  more  of  «'s  that  masquerade  as  w's, 

No  nice  perplexities  of  />'s  and  #'s; 

No  more  mishaps  of  ante  and  of  post, 

That  most  mislead  when  they  should  help  the  most; 

No   more    of    'friend'    as    'fiend,'    and    'warm'    as 

worm  ; 

No  more  negations  where  we  would  affirm; 

No  more  of  those  mysterious  freaks  of  fate 

That  make  us  bless  when  we  should  execrate ; 

No  more  of  those  last  blunders  that  remain 

Where  we  no  more  can  set  them  right  again ; 

223 


224  DE  LIBRIS 

No  more  apologies  for  doubtful  data ; 
No  more  fresh  facts  that  figure  as  Errata; 
No  more,  in  short,  O  Type,  of  wayward  lore 
From  thy  most  z/«-Pierian  fount — NO  more  !" 

So  spoke  Papyrius.    Yet  his  hand  meanwhile 
Went  vaguely  seeking  for  the  vacant  file, 
Late  stored  with  long  array  of  notes,  but  now 
Bare-wired  and  barren  as  a  leafless  bough; — . 
And  even  as  he  spoke,  his  mind  began 
Again  to  scheme,  to  purpose  and  to  plan. 

There  is  no  end  to  Labour  'neath  the  sun ; 

There  is  no  end  of  labouring — but  One ; 

And  though  we  "twitch  (or  not)  our  Mantle  blue," 

"To-morrow  to  fresh  Woods,  and  Pastures  new." 


GENERAL  INDEX 


235 


GENERAL  INDEX 


[N.B. — The  titles  of  articles  are  in  capitals 


Addison,  Joseph,  8,  34 
Adele  et  Theodore,  78,  79 
Alexandre,  Arsene,    103 
Allemagne,   De  I',   Mme.   de  Stael's, 

136 
Allen,  Ralph,   157,   160 
Almanacks,    Miss    Greenaway's,    97, 

103 
American   Notes,    Dickens's,    138 
Ami  des  Enfants,   Berquin's,    76 
A   Miltonic   Exercise,   191-92 
Analysis   of   Beauty,    Hogarth's,    48, 

53 
Andrew,   Sarah,    196 
Ak  Epistle  to  an   Editor,   19-21 
Angellier,   M.    Auguste,    153,    154  n. 
Anstey,   Christopher,    160,   214 
A      Pleasant      Invective      against 

Printing,  89 
Arable,   Mrs.    Betty,    114 
Art    of    Politicks,     Bramston's,     26, 

27 
Arts,  M.   Rouquet  on  the,  45-64 
As    you    like    it,    Caldecott's   edition 

of,    139 
Auction  of  Pictures,  34,  62-63 
Austen,  Jane,  85,    118-20 
A    Welcome    from    the    "Johnson 

Club,"    165-66 
Aynard,   M.   Joseph,    154*1. 
Ayscough's    Index    to    Shakespeare, 

139 

Bacon,   Francis,   135 

Balcony,  or  Balcony,   37-38 

Ballad  of  Beau  Brocade,  Thomson's, 

«3 
Bar  beau,   M.    A,   154 
Barnaby   Rudge,    Dickens's,    137 
Barry   Lyndon,   Thackeray's,    1 1 5  n. 


Bath,  A  French  Critic  on,   153-62 
Bath,  A   Picture  of,   158-62 
Batheaston   Vase,  The,    157 
Beljame,   Alexandre,    153,    154 
Belle-Isle,  Marshal  Foucquet  de,  47, 

48 
Belles-lettres  in  1750,  60 
Bentley,  Richard,  30,  37 
Bewick,  Robert  Elliot,  7 
Bewick,  Thomas,  7,  8,  9 
Bewick's  Birds  and  Quadrupeds,  141 
Birthday    Book,     Miss    Greenaway's, 

97 
Blackmore,    Sir    Richard,    30 
Bleak   House,  Dickens's,    176 
Blenheim,   Philips's,   13 
Blok,   Dr.    Pieter,    199 
Bloomfield,    Robert,    135 
Bononcini,   C.    B.,    35 
Book    Illustrators,    Two    Modern, 

93-104,    1 1 1-24 
Book    of    Games,    The,    Miss   Green- 
away's,   103 
Borough,    Crabbe's,   135 
Boyle,   Richard,   Earl  of   Burlington, 

28 
Bradshaw,  John,   32 
Bramston,    Francis,    26 
Bramston,    Rev.    James,   25,    26,   29 
Bramston,   Sir  John,  the  Elder,   26 
Bramston,    Sir    John,    the    Younger, 

26  n. 
Bramston,    Sir    Moundeford,   26 
Bramston's   Man   of  Taste,   25-38 
Bridgeman,   Charles,  33,  49 
Bronte,   Charlotte,   177-79 
Brougham's    Albert   Lunel,    138 
Brown,    Mr.     Ernest,    his    Thomson 

book-plate,    120  n. 
Brown,    Mrs.    John,    181  n. 


227 


228 


DE  LIBRIS 


Brydges,   James,   Duke    of    Chandos,    I 

28 
Bulmer,   William,    8 
Bunbury's,   H.  W.,    161 
Burchett,   Richard,    102 
Burford  Papers,   Hutton's,    157 
"Burlington   Gate,"    Hogarth's,   28 
Burlington,  Lady,   56 
Burlington,   Richard  Boyle,  Earl  of, 

28 
Burney,    Dr.,    134 
Burney,   Fanny,   79,    121 
Bush,    Mr.    T.    S.,    201 
Butler,    Lady,    102 
Byron,    Lord,"   137 

Canterbury    Tales,    Thomson's,    123 
Careless   Husband,    Cibber's,    32 
Carlyle's    Cromwell,    138 
Carr,   Mr.   Comyns,   112,    113 
Cervantes,    Miguel    de,    127 
Chandos,   James    Brydges,    Duke    of, 

28 
Chaucer,    Bonham's,    140 
Chaucer,    Geoffrey,    123 
Cheere,   Sir   Henry,    34 
Childe  Harold,    Byron's,   137 
Child's  Friend,   Berquin's,   75 
"Child's   Song,"    101 
Cibber,   Colley,  32,  37 
Cibber,    Gabriel,    57 
Clennell,    Luke,    142 
Coaching  Days  and  Coaching  Ways, 

Outram   Tristram's,    115 
Cochin,   Charles  Nicolas,    46,  49,   64 
Columbus,   Rogers's,   142 
Comic    Writers,    Lectures    on    The, 

Hazlitt's,    15 
Compleat  Angler,  The,  6,  71 
Coplas,   Manrique's,   13 
Coram,    Captain   Thomas,    10 
Coridon's     Song,     etc.,     Thomson's, 

120,    121 
Corinne,  Mme.  de   Stael's,   136 
Courier,  P.  L.,  30 
Courthope,   Mr.   W.   J.,    165 
Coverley,    Sir   Roger  de,   113,   114 
Cowley,  Abraham,    146 
Crabbe,    George,    135 
Cradock,  Charlotte,  201 
Cranford,   'Mrs.    Gaskell'a,    85,    117, 

118 
Cranford   Series,   120,    121 
Cranford,   Thomson's,    117,    11S,    12: 
Crooked  Sixpence,   The,   Bramston's, 

27 
Cross  Readikgs — and  Caleb  White- 
foord,  211-19 


Crowe,     Mr.     Eyre,     172,     173,     174, 

175,   176  n. 
Crowe,   William,    139,    143 

Dance  of  Death,   Holbein's,    141 

Danton,    the    caricaturist,    145 

Dassier,    Anthony,    58 

Davy,    Sir  Humphry,    136 

Day    in    a    Child's    Life,    A,    Miss 

Greenaway's,    97,    99 
Day,   Thomas,    77,    79 
Days   with    Sir  Roger   de   Coverley, 

Thomson's,     113 
Decameron,    Boccaccio's,    141 
Delphine,    Mme.    de    Stael's,    136 
Derocquigny,    M.    Jules,    154  n. 
Dickens,     Charles,     132,     133,     137, 

138 
Diderot,   Denis,    57 
Digbv     Grand,     Whyte      Melville's, 

176 
Dispensary,   Pope's  copy  of  Garth's, 

139 
Diversions       of       Purley,        Home 

Tooke's,    141 
"Don     Quixote,"     Horatian     Ode 

on    the    Tercentenary    of,    127- 

28 
Douady,  M.   Jules,   154**. 

Eastlake,    Lady,   146 

Edgeworth,   Maria,   71-86,    123 

Edgeworth,    Mr.,    76,    78,    82  n. 

Editor,  An   Epistle  to  an,    19-21 

Eliot,     George,     121 

Elwin,  Rev.  Whitwell,  171,  i73» 
183 

English  Illustrated  Magazine,  112, 
114 

Enquiry  into  Polite  Learning,  Gold- 
smith's,   31 

Ephraim    the    Quaker,    114 

Esmond,    Thackeray's,    169-87 

Esmond,   Thomson's,    121,   123 

ttat  des  Arts,   Rouquet's,   45-64 

Evelina,    Thomson's,    121 

Evelyn,  John,   156*. 

Evenings  at  Home,   Dr.   Aikin's,   75 

Fairie  Queene,   Spenser's,    140 
Farmer's  Boy,    Bloomfield's,    135 
Fexrier,   Miss  Susan,   8s 
Fielding,    "Beau,"    200 
Fielding,  Fresh  Facts  about,   19S- 

203 
Fielding,    Henry,    160:    his    stay    at 

Leyden,     196-200;     his     marriage, 

200-1;   his   sisters,   202-3 


GENERAL  INDEX 


229 


Fielding,   Sarah,   196,  201,  203 
Fielding,    The    Misses,    202 
Fiennes,    Celia,    her    Diary,    156 
Figg,   the   prize-fighter,    37 
"Finding   of   Moses,"    Hogarth's,    52 
Fitzgerald,    Mr.    Percy,    132,    133  n. 
Flaxman,   John,    134. 
Foote,    Samuel,    47 
Fox,   Charles   James,    15,   36 
Franklin,    Benjamin,    215 
French  Critic  on  Bath,  A,  153 
Fresh  Facts   about  Fielding,   195- 

203 
Friend     of     Humanity     and     the 

Rhymer,  The,  67-68 
Furniss,   Mr.   Harry,   113 

Gardelle,    Theodore,    47 
Gardening,    Landscape,    33,    49 
Gardens  of   Adonis,    37 
Garrick,   David,    47,   61,    131 
Gaskell,    Mrs.,    117 
Gay,    John,    165 
"Ginevra"    (Italy),    137 
Goldsmith,    Cunningham's,    14,    15 
Goldsmith,     Oliver,     31,     35  n.,     37, 

157,    183,    214 
"Good    Samaritan,"    Hogarth's,    53 
Gosse,   Mr.    Edmund,    145  n. 
Goupy,    Joseph,    56 
Grammont's    Memoirs,    157 
Gray,   Thomas,   31 
Greenaway  Child,  A  Song  of  the, 

107 
Greenaway,   John,    102 
Greenaway,    Kate,    93-104,    123 

"Hagar    and    Ishmael,"   Highmore's, 

52 
Hall,    Fitzedward,    186 
Halsewell,    Loss   of   the,    144 
Hamlet,   Caldecott's   edition   of,    139 
Handel,    56 
Hannay,    James,    197 
Hanway,   Jonas,   62 
Harrison,    Mr.    Frederic,    183,    198 
Harrison's    Tatler,    212  n. 
Harry   and   Lucy,    Edgeworth's,    79 
Hayman,    Francis,    52,    54 
Hazlitt,   W.,   15,   138 
Hazlitt's   Criticisms  on  Art,    138 
Highmore,    Joseph,    52,    54 
Highways   and   Byways    series,    122 
Highways    and    Byways    of   London 

Life,    Cook's,    122 
History  of  Life  and  Death,  Bacon's, 

7 
History   Painting,   50-54 
Hoadly,  Dr.  John,  201 


Hoare  of  Bath,   William,    140 

Hogarth,    Mrs.,    12 

Hogarth's   "Man   of    Taste,"   28 

Hogarth,  William,  11,  28,  34,  35, 
50,   51,   52,    53,    54,   64,   113 

Holcroft,    Thomas,    79 

Homer,    Cowper's,    143 

Horatian  Ode  on  the  Tercen- 
tenary of  "Don  Quixote," 
127-8 

Huchon,    M.    Rene,    154  n. 

Hudson,    Thomas,    54 

Hugo,    Victor,    117 

Huntingdon,    Lady,    157,    160 

Hurd,    Bishop,    160 

Hutton,    Dr.     Charles,    9 

Hypatia,   Kingsley's,    176 

Hypnerotomichie   of    Poliphilus,    141 

"In  an  Apple-Tree,"    101 
Ireland,   John,    48 
Ireland,    Samuel,    12,    13 
Ireland,   William   Henry,    12 

Jerrold,    Douglas,    1 1 1 

"Johnson      Club,"      A      Welcome 

FROM     THE,     165-6 

Johnson,    Samuel,    31,    82,    214 
Johnson,   Joseph,    the   publisher,    73- 

76 
Jones,    Inigo,    33 
Jordan,    Mrs.,     161 
Jusserand,    M.    J.-J.,     153 

Kate    Greenaway's     Painting    Book, 

103 
Kearsly,    George,    216,    217,    218 
Keightley,    Thomas,    197,    201,    202 
Kent,   William,    28,   49,   50 
Kentucky   Cardinal,    Allen's,    121 
Kickleburys    on    the    Rhine,    Thack- 
eray's,   177 
King  over  the    Water,   Shield's  and 

Lang's,    183  n. 
King  Pepito,   Miss   Greenaway's,  103 
Kneller,   Sir  Godfrey,   54 

Labelye,    Charles,    46,    60 

Lalla  Rookh,    Moore's,    137 

La  Motte,   M.,    161 

Lampson,  F.  Locker,  38,  99,  132, 
176 

Landor,  W.    S.,    13,    169  n. 

Lang,    Mr.    Andrew,    113,    183  ft. 

Langley,    Batty,    33 

Language  of  Flowers,  Miss  Green- 
away's,    103 

Lansdowne,    Marquess   of,    137 

Layard,   Mr.   G.  S.,  29,   104 


23° 


DE  LIBRIS 


"Lazy      Lawrence,"       Miss       Edge- 
worth's,   8 1 
Leake,   James,    160 
Le  Blanc,   Abbe,   55  ft.,   57 
Lee,    Mr.,    161 
Legouis,  M.  fimile,  154 
Legros,    Prof.,    102 
Lessons    for    Children,     Mrs.     Bar- 

bauld's,    75 
Letters    to     Literary    Ladies,     Miss 

Edgeworth's,    80 
Lewesdon    Hill,    Crowe's,    143 
Leyden  University,  Fielding  at,   196- 

200 
Linley,    Elizabeth,    157 
Liotard,   J.    S.,   46 
Little   Ann,    Miss    Greenaway's,    97, 

99 
"Little    Nell,"    Dickens's,    137 
Locker,      Frederick,      see      Lampson 
Locker,    Lampson    portraits,     100 
Lofft,    Capel,    135 
London   and  Wise,   Messrs.,    50 
Longfellow's   Ballads,    138 
Longfellow's    Voices    of    the    Night, 

138 
Lowell,   James   Russell,    185,   203 
Lusiads,   Camoens's,    141 
Lyrics  of  the  Heart,  A.  A.  Watts' s, 

15 
Lyster,    Mr.   Alfred    C,    197 

Macaulay's    Lays,    138 

Maclise,  Daniel   ("Alfred  Croquis"), 

143 
Maginn,    William,    145 
Mandeville,    Bernard  de,   32 
Man  of   Taste,   Bramston's,   25-38 
Man  of  Taste,   Hogarth's,   28 
Manzoni's  Promessi  Sposi,    143 
Marianne,    Marivaux's,    142 
Marigny,       Abel-Francois       Poisson, 

Marquis   de,   45,    46,    49,    64 
Marigold      Garden,       Miss      Green- 
away's,  97,    100,    104 
Martin,    Mr.    Samuel,    202 
Master   Humphrey's   Clock,    132,  137 
Melmoth,    William,    160 
Memoirs     Relating     to     the     Royal 

Navy,  Pepys',  10 
Mensuration,    Hutton's,    9 
Metamorphoses      d'      Ovide,      Ren- 

ouard's,    4 
Meteyard,   Miss   Eliza,    111 
Miller,   Lady,    157 
Milton,   John,    31,    140,   143 
Milton   Tercentenary,  1608-1908,    191 
Miutonic   Exercise,   A,    191-2 
Missionary,   Bowles's,   136-7 


Mistakes  of  the  Press,  217,  219 

Mitford,    Miss,    117 

Monamy,    Peter,    56 

Montagu,  Mrs.,   on  Shakespeare,  139 

Montaigne,    Michel    de,    31  n. 

Moore,     Edward,    135 

Moore,    Thomas,    137 

Moral  Essay,  No.  4,   Pope's,  28 

Morel,    M.    Leon,    154 

Morris,     Mr.     Mowbray,     175  n. 

Moser,    Michael,   46,   47,   64 

"Moses       brought       to       Pharaoh's 

Daughter,"    Hogarth's,    52 
Mourning   Bride,    Congreve's,   25 

M.     ROUQUET    ON    THE    ARTS,    45-64 

Murphy,    Arthur,    52  n.,    196,    200 

"Musing,"     103 

My  Novel,   Bulwer's,   176,   177 

Nash,    Richard,    157 

Newspaper,  The  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury,   58-60 

Nicholas    Nickleby,    Dickens's,    137 

Nivernais,    Due    de,    50 

Nollekens  and  his  Times,  Smith's, 
218 

North   Briton,    The,    11,   12 

Northcliffe,     Lord,     134  n. 

Old   Curiosity   Shop,   Dickens's,    137 
Oldfield,    Mrs.,    32 
"Old  Poz,"  80,  86 
"Omnium,   Jacob,"    30 
On    Some   Books    and   their   Asso- 
ciations,  3-15 

Paine,    Edmund    (Rogers's   servant), 

142 
Pamela,    Richardson's,    142 
Panizzi,    Sir    Antonio,    173 
"Papyrius   Cursor,"   211 
Paradise   Lost,    Milton's,    140 
Parent's    Assistant,   The,   71-86 
Passeran,   Count,   33 
Passionate    Printer   to   his    Love, 

The,    41-42 
"Paul   before   Felix,"   Hogarth's,    53 
Peacock,    Mr.    Edward,    197 
Peg   WoMngton,    Thomson's,    121 
Peinture   en  Cire,   Diderot's,    63 
Peinture      en      Fromage,      V      Art 

nouveau  de  la,   Rouquet's,   63 
Pennell,    Mr.    Joseph,    124 
Pepys*    "Diary,"    149-50 
Pepys,    Samuel,  9,   156 
Philips,    John,    13 
Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,   97 
Pilgrim     of     Glencoe,      Campbell's, 

138 


GENERAL  INDEX 


231 


Pilgrim's    Progress,    Bunyan's,    72 

Pleasant  Invective  against  Print- 
ing, A,  89 

Pleasures  of  Memory,  Rogers's,  132, 
142 

Pompadour,  Jeanne-Antoinette 
Poisson,  Marquise   de,   46 

"Pool  of   Bethesda,"   Hogarth's,   53 

Pope,  Alexander,    15,  28,   32,    139 

Porteus,    Bishop,    160 

Portrait  in   oil,    54-56 

Prestongrange,    Lord,    14 

Prideaux,   Col.    W.    F.,   202 

Procter,    Mrs.,    146 

Proof,   The   Last,  223 

Pursuits  of  Literature,   Mathias's,    8 

Queen     of    the    Pirate     Isle,     Bret 

Harte's,    97 
Quin,  James,   161 

Rabbe,   M.   Felix,    153 

Racine,  Memoires  of,  by  his  son, 
143 

Railton,    Mr.    Herbert,    115 

Ramsay,    Allan,    55 

Rauzzini,    Venanzio,    161 

Reade,   Charles,    121 

Retaliation,   Goldsmith,   216 

Reynolds,    Sir   Joshua,    134,    141 

Richardson,   Samuel,   160,   203 

Rimbault,   Dr.,    10 

Ritchie,   Lady,   83,   175 

Rogers,   Samuel,   38 

Rogers,  Samuel,  The  Books  of, 
131-46 

Rose  and  the  Ring,  The,  Thack- 
eray's, 82 

Roubillac,   L.    F.,    57 

Rouquet,    Jean-Andre,    45-64 

Rouquet,  M.,  on  the  Arts,  45-64 

Rousseau,    Jean-Jacques,    143 

Ruskin,    John,    96,    103 

Ruxton,    Miss   Sophy,   75 

Rysbraek,  J.  M.,  57 

San  ford  and  Merton,  Day's,  79 
Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,  Thomson's, 

121 
Scheemakers,    Thomas,    57 
"Scotchman  in   Holland,   A,"    197 
Scott,    Samuel,    56 
Scott,   Sir  Walter,  84,   137,   175  n. 
Seymour,  James,   56 
Sheridan,  R.   B.,   136,   157 
Ship  News,  217,  219 
Shorter,   Mr.    Clement,    179  n. 
Shovel,    Sir   Cloudesly,  34 
Siddons,  Mrs.,   161 


Silas   Marner,   Thomson's,    121 
"Simple   Susan,"    Miss  Edgeworth's, 

74,   85 
Sketches   by   Bos,   Dickens's,    133 
Smith,   J.    T„   218 
Smith,    Mr.    George,    172,    179 
Solly,    Prof.    Edward,    10 
Song  of  the  Greenaway  Child,  A, 

107 
Southey,    Robert,    13 
Spielmann,    Mr.    Marion    H.,    104  n. 
Spiritual   Quixote,    Graves's,    157 
Splendid  Shilling,   Philips's,    13,  27 
Stael,  Mme.  de,  136 
Standly,  H.   P.,    11,   12 
Stapfer,  M.    Paul,    153 
"Stareleigh,   Mr.   Justice,"    132 
St.  Bruno,  Le  Sueur's,   141 
Steele,    Sir    Richard,    183-4,    186 
Steevens,    George,    47 
Stephen,    Sir  Leslie,    174,    202 
Sterne,   Laurence,    182  n. 
Stevenson,   R.   L.,    14 
St.    James's    Palace,     No.    22,     132, 

134 
Story    of   Rosina,    Thomson's,    123 
Stothard,   Thomas,  93-4,    123,    134 
"Suffer     Little     Children,"     Wills's, 

52 
"Sun  Door,   The,"    100 
Sure  and  Certain  Method  of  Attain- 
ing   a    Long    and    Healthy    Life, 

Cornaro's,    7 
Sussex,    Dallaway    and   Cartwright's, 

27 
Swaen,   Mr.   A.   F.   H.,    198,   199 
Swift,   Jonathan,   30,    182  n. 
Sylva   Sylvarum,    Bacon's,   6 
Symmons,   Samuel,  the   Printer,   140 

Taine,    Hippolyte,    153 
Tales  from  Maria  Edgeworth,  Thom- 
son's,  123 
Tales  of  the  Hall,   Crabbe's,  135 
"Tarleton,"    Miss    Edgeworth's,    81 
Tar    Water,    Bishop    Berkeley's,    77 
Taste,  Of  False,   Pope's,  28 
Taste,   Of,   Pope's,  28 
Tatler,    Harrison's,   212  n. 
Talyor,    Isaac,  99 
Taylor,  Jane  and  Ann,  99 
Thackeray's    Esmond,     169-87 
Thackeray,   W.    M.,   121,    169-87 
The  Books  of  Samuel  Rogers,  131- 

46 
"The      False      Key,"      Miss     Edge- 
worth's,   81,  83 
The  Friend  of  Humanity  and  the 
Rhymer,   67-68 


232 


DE  LIBRIS 


"The    Happy    Printer,"    207-8 

The   Last   Proof,   223-4 

"The  Mimic,"  81,   82,   84 

The   Parent's  Assistant,   71-86 

Thomas,    Miss   Margaret,    203 

Thomas,   M.    W.,    154 

Thomson,    James,    14,   31,    154 

Thomson,    Mr.    Hugh,    1 11-24 

Tennyson's  Ode  on  the  Death  of 
the   Duke   of   Wellington,    176 

Tennyson's   Poems,    138 

Texte,   Joseph,    154,    156 

"Time  Smoking  a  Picture,"  Ho- 
garth's,   51 

Tindal,   Matthew,    32 

Tom  Jones,   Fielding's,    36 

Tooke,    Home,    140,    141  n. 

Traill,  H.   D.,    113 

Trinity   College,   Cambridge,    174 

Trollope,    Anthony,    169 

Tutor's  Assistant,    The,   y6 

Two  Modern  Book  Illustrators, 
93-104,   111-24 

Tyers,    Jonathan,    61 

Under    the    Window,    Miss    Green- 

away's,    103 
Use  of  Riches,  On  the,   Pope's,  28 


Vails-Giving,    62 
Vanbrugh,  Sir  John,  33 
Vandergucht,    Gerard,   29 
Vanhaken,  Joseph,   55,   56 
Vanloo,   Jean-Baptiste,    55 
Vauxhall   in    1750,   61 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,   Thomson's,    116 
Villette,  Charlotte  Bronte's,  176,  177 
Vortigem  and  Rowena,  W.    H.    Ire- 
land's,   13 

Walpole,  Horace,   49,   50,   57,   214 
Watts,   Alaric  A.,   14 
Whitbread,    Samuel,    136 
Whitefield,   George,    160 
Whitefoord,    Caleb,    215-19 
Whitefoord,     Caleb,      and     Cross 

Readings,   211-19 
Whitefoord  Papers,  Hewins's,  216  ». 
Wilkes,   John,    11 
Wilkie,   David,  215 
Wimble,    Will,    114 
Woodfall,   Henry   Sampson,    211 
Wootton,    John,    56 
Wordsworth's   Poems,    138 
Wren,    Sir    Christopher,    33 

Zincke,   Christian,  47,   56,   57,   64 


OF  THE 


THE    END 


OTHER  BOOKS  BY  AUSTIN  DOBSON 
In  the  "English  Men  of  Letters"  Series 
Henry  Fielding 

"A  new  edition  of  this  well-known  biographical  handbook,  the  one 
most  often  consulted  for  information  about  its  subject,  was  issued  last 
year  with  an  added  appendix  containing  particulars  which  have  come 
to  light  relating  to  Fielding's  pedigree,  his  residence  at  Leyden  as 
student,  his  marriage  to  his  first  wife,  his  will,  his  library,  his  family, 
etc.' '—'Boston  Transcript. 

40  cents  net. 

Samuel  Richardson 

"Of  all  the  earlier  biographies  in  the  Men  of  Letters  Series  there 
is  none  more  fascinating  than  that  of  Fielding.  Scholarly,  exhaustive, 
and,  like  all  Mr  Dobson's  work,  extremely  entertaining,  it  has  the 
further  merit  of  illuminating  Fielding's  character  and  writings  by  the 
sympathetic  light  of  genuine  affection. 

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EDITED  BY  AUSTIN  DOBSON 
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A  Wanderer  in  London 

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six  reproductions  of  great  pictures. 

Cloth,  8vo,  $1.73  ****  h  mail>  Si. 87. 

"Mr  Lucas  describes  London  in  a  style  that  is  always  entertaining, 
surprisingly  like  Andrew  Lang's,  full  of  unexpected  suggestions  and 
points  of  view,  so  that  one  who  knows  London  well  will  hereafter  look 
on  it  with  changed  eyes,  and  one  who  has  only  a  bowing  acquaintance 
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"Full  of  interest  and  sensitive  appreciation  of  the  most  fascinating 
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"If  you  would  know  London  as  few  of  her  own  inhabitants  know 
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A  Wanderer  in  Holland 

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reproductions  of  the  masterpieces  of  Dutch  Painters 
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"It  is  not  very  easy  to  point  out  the  nerits  which  make  this  volume 
immeasurably  superior  to  nine  tenths  of  the  books  of  travel  that  are 
offered  the  public  from  time  to  time.  Perhaps  it  is  to  be  traced  to  the 
fact  that  Mr.  Lucas  is  an  intellectual  loiterer,  rather  than  a  keen-eyed 
reporter,  eager  to  catch  a  train  for  the  next  stopping-place.  It  is  also 
to  be  found  partially  in  the  fact  that  the  author  is  so  much  in  love  with 
the  artistic  life  of  Holland." — Globe  Democrat,  St   Louis. 

"Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas  is  an  observant  and  sympathetic  traveller,  and 
has  given  us  here  one  of  the  best  handbooks  on  Holland  which  we  have 
read."— Philadelphia  Ledger. 

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Journal,  Louisville. 

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Anthologies  of  Varied  Charm  Collected  by  E.  V.  LUCAS 

The  Gentlest  Art 

A  Choice  of  Letters  by  Entertaining  Hands 

An  anthology  of  letter  writing,  so  human,  interesting,  and  amusing 
from  first  to  last,  as  almost  to  inspire  one  to  attempt  the  restoration  of 
a  lost  art.  "We  do  not  believe  that  a  more  likable  book  has  been 
published  this  year." — The  Evening  Post,  Chicago. 

Cloth,  i2mo,  'viit  +  240  pp.,  $1.23  net. 

Another  Book  of  Verse  for  Children 

Verses  of  the  seasons,  of  "little  fowls  of  the  air"  and  of  "the 
country  round";  ballads  of  sailormen,  and  of  battle;  songs  of  the 
hearthrug,  and  of  the  joy  of  being  alive  and  a  child,  selected  by  Mr. 
Lucas  and  illustrated  in  black  and  white  and  with  colored  plates  by 
Mr.  F.  D.  Bedford.  The  wording  of  the  title  is  an  allusion  to  the 
very  successful  Book  of  Verse  for  Children  issued  ten  years  ago. 
The  Athenaum  describes  Mr.  Lucas  as  "the  ideal  editor  for  such  a 
book  as  this." 

Cloth,  8vo,  col.  illus.,  Si. JO  net. 

The  Ladies'  Pageant 

Better  than  any  one  else  whose  name  comes  to  mind,  Mr.  Lucas  has 
mastered  the  difficult  art  of  the  compiler.  There  is  more  individuality 
in  The  Gentlest  Art,  for  instance,  than  in  the  so-called  original  works 
of  many  an  author.  This  happy  knack  of  assembling  the  best  things 
in  the  world  on  a  given  subject  is  given  free  play  in  the  present  book, 
the  subject  of  which  is  the  Eternal  Feminine.  Here  are  all  the  best  words 
of  the  poets  on  a  theme  which  surely  offers  scope  for  more  variety  than 
any  other  within  the  view  of  the  reader.  Like  others  of  Mr.  Lucas' 
books,  this  is  attractively  bound  and  decorated. 

Cloth,  i2tno,  $1.25  net. 

Character  and  Comedy 

The  Tribune:  "Of  all  the  readers  of  Charles  Lamb  who  have 
striven  to  emulate  him,  Mr.  Lucas  comes  nearest  to  being  worthy  of  him. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  it  is  natural  to  him  to  look  upon  life  and  letters  and 
all  things  with  something  of  Lamb's  gentleness,  sweetness  and  humor." 

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